Lucius Malfoy's Favorite Charity
by Overhill
Summary: COMPLETE! Lucius becomes a benefactor for an excellent cause. Story line includes events from Philosopher's Stone. Final chapter: The Decisions of Lucius Malfoy
1. Chapter 1 Mr Malfoy at St Mungo's

_"Malfoy was cleared!" said Fudge, visibly affronted. "A very old family - donations to excellent causes." from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire"_

_Castlerigg and Freni-Fawr are actual locations in England and Wales._

_No Flobberworms were hurt in the writing of this chapter._

_"Thank you" to my beta, somigliana!_

**Why is Mr. Malfoy at St. Mungo's Hospital?**

"So glad you could meet with me on such short notice, Mr. Malfoy," Healer Thompson said.

The two wizards were in the Healer's office, a small private room with privacy wards in place. They were sitting in desk chairs in front of the desk, facing each other. Lucius Malfoy had removed his overcoat, but not his gloves, and was toying with his walking stick. The Healer was wearing his hospital uniform, and was fiddling with a teacup.

Lucius nodded. "You said it was something you wanted to talk to me about privately," he said, coming directly to the point.

"Yes, yes, well, did you hear or read about the witch who was found last week, August thirty-first?" The Healer nervously rubbed his bald head, his troubled brown eyes gazing into Lucius's grey ones.

"I'm afraid I didn't get the full story. Mrs. Malfoy and I were in Paris, so it really wasn't front-page news there. Just that a witch was found with no memory, and that there was a reward for any information," Lucius replied coolly.

"Well, so far there hasn't been any credible information, and no, you didn't get the full story. It wasn't released. I'm hoping that I can count on your discretion to not repeat it outside this office."

"Then why tell me at all?"

"Because, I'm asking you for help, as your father and his father before him have been among our most generous donors. This is a special request, as it were, for a special need."

Lucius gazed evenly at the healer. "Go on, then."

The Healer cleared his throat and hesitated. "Then I can count on your discretion."

"Yes, yes of course. You also have my complete attention," the man prompted.

The Healer sighed. "She was found in the early morning hours, in the middle of Castlerigg Stone Circle"

"That, I've read."

"What wasn't reported was that she was found under the Dark Mark."

Lucius gasped. "Was she hurt in some way?"

"She was in labour. She was on the ground, wearing nothing but a brown wool robe, in the late stages of labour. There was not time to move her to St. Mungo's. There was barely enough time to catch the baby as it was. The area had been warded against Muggles, but not us. It's like we were expected."

"She had a baby?"

"A boy. Born under the Dark Mark."

Lucius sat in stunned silence for a moment. "Where is the baby now?"

"With his mother. She refuses to let go of it, except when it's explained to her that it needs testing or cleaning or whatever, and then she wants to be with it."

Lucius stared at the Healer. "How are they now?"

Healer Thompson sighed. "As well as could be expected. The boy is fine; the mother is having some problems."

Lucius slowly stood up and started pacing, holding his walking stick behind him. "Forgive me, Healer. Narcissa and I are planning to start our family sometime soon, and I...," he choked on his words. "I am overwhelmed to think that any child should have such a cold welcome into this world, that any woman would be treated so, so rashly. Leaving them in a stone ring...it's as if they were...some sort of human sacrifice." He shuddered. "How barbaric." He stopped his pacing and faced the Healer. "So let me ask, how can I help this unfortunate pair?"

"Due to the mother's problems, they may be here at the hospital for an indeterminable time. Extra funds would be needed for their care."

"Yes, yes, of course. And is there any sign of a father, wedding ring perhaps?"

"No, and we've had Granny in with her, and all she could find for memories was that the woman had drunk a fertility potion to ensure conception of a boy."

"Granny?" Frowning, Lucius sat back down, his walking stick across his knees.

"A Legilimens. We have a few on staff for help on trauma patients, the stunned, mutes, language differences and so forth. Granny specializes in the most unfortunate cases..."

"Well, I never imagined that the hospital would have staff members trained in that magic, but it definitely makes sense. Tell me, have you told me everything? Don't hold back now. How are the boy and his mother?" he asked earnestly.

"Both are doing fine, considering the circumstances. The hospital has named the baby "Richard"."

"Richard? Why Richard?" Lucius frowned.

"Because he came after "Quentin" on the list."

"Who's Quentin?" he asked.

"A foundling. Turned out his parents weren't of age, and were afraid to tell theirs. He's with his family now, with a new name. The one after Richard will be "Stephen"."

"Odd, sad in a way, planning for foundlings. An alphabetical list?"

"It happens, yes."

"And the mother's name?"

"We're hoping someone will tell us what it is. But we did pick a name off the founding list for her for the current paperwork. "Lilith". After "Karen" and before "Matilda"."

"Lilith..." Lucius gave a slight frown. "Interesting... Not to change the subject, but how were these lists made?"

Healer Thomson sighed and put the teacup on the desk. "Every one hundred or so years, new lists are made up. The current ones were made decades ago by a supposed soothsayer. Trelawney, Cassandra Trelawney, as I recall."

"You don't believe in divination?" Lucius gave a small smile.

"If it really worked, I'd be out of a job. Everyone would be safe obeying the strictures of their prophecies, and if the prophecy says 'Die', then why should there be Healers?"

Lucius looked at Healer Thompson. "So for the time being, this, this Richard, is a, a Merlin? A boy without a known father?"

"So it would seem," the Healer said.

Lucius was silent, his face clouded. "Look, I'll help with finances," he said slowly, "but on certain conditions."

"Name them," the Healer said.

"First, complete anonymity, and I mean complete. I've had enough of unworthy causes begging at me, sending me owls every hour of the day and night. And for Narcissa; I don't want her upset by undue public attention or unworthy gossip. The media can and will twist any good deed just to sell papers."

Healer Thompson nodded. "I can certainly agree with that."

"However, there is one more thing that I hope that can be done, and still meet the conditions I've set forth. Please have me named as the baby's benefactor, until such time as the family can be found and that they can take care of him and the mother. I would like to be able to see the baby as often as I wish, when I wish--within reason of course--to make sure that all is well and that the funds are being used for them, no offence meant."

"None taken. And I agree wholeheartedly with the conditions you've asked for. When would you like to see the baby?"

"Now, if possible." He hesitated, then added, "But it would be best to see him without his mother. I trust that the hospital is doing all it can for her, as well as the baby, but again, if the media gets wind of me of so-called "seeing" another woman, even to simply enquire of her health, well, you can imagine..." He gave a wry smile. "But the baby, now there shouldn't be any harm if I'm seen with a baby."

Fortunately, both mother and baby were asleep. The infant was brought in to the office. Lucius examined it as it lay in the Healer's arms. He was silent as he stared at it, then, quietly he asked, "May I hold him? Practice for fatherhood, as it were?" he said, giving Healer Thompson a small smile.

He sat down and held out his gloved hands. The baby was given to him, and he held the boy awkwardly. For once, he was at a loss for words. After a few moments of gazing at the tiny infant, he silently handed him back to the Healer. The Dark Lord would be pleased.

Very seriously, he said, "I'm going to be completely selfish. I want to be the child's sole beneficiary. Have any others been contacted?"

"You were the first on the list."

"Then let me also be the last." He smiled.

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Lucius Malfoy had a schedule. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, he was at the financial offices of his investments, keeping on track of how the businesses were going. Tuesdays, he checked the rental properties. He had his social obligations with and without Narcissa, and, like a dutiful husband, assisted her in her committee works and events. All events were scheduled to allow that every Thursday morning he could attend to "business" at St. Mungo's Hospital. After Narcissa became pregnant, he escorted his wife to her pre-natal appointments at St. Mungo's and encouraged her to visits with her sisters in Diagon Alley while he stayed at the hospital.

He didn't see the baby Richard's mother, but he always saw the baby, and rocked the baby, fed the baby, read to the baby and played with the baby in the hospital's play nursery under the beaming smiles of the nursery attendants.

"Mrs. Malfoy is so lucky to have you for the father of her child," they told him as he handed the baby back to them for his nappy change at the end of his two-hour visits.

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Narcissa and the baby, Draco, were asleep. They would be spending at least a week at St. Mungo's while Narcissa recovered from childbirth; it was far more convenient for her female relatives and friends to visit, and she could have short outings in Diagon Alley. As Mr. Malfoy was such a generous benefactor, nothing was too good for him and his family.

He carefully tucked the blanket around the infant, gave Narcissa a kiss on her cheek and quietly left the flower-filled room.

A few minutes later, he was in the hospital's play nursery, conjuring mazes and tunnels for Richard to crawl through and levitating toys to make him laugh.

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"We're so glad you could make it on such short notice, Mr. Malfoy," the nursery attendant cheerfully welcomed him.

"You said he did his first magic today. So he's still doing it?" he eagerly asked.

"Yes! We were surprised and thought you would be too."

"So you're not going to tell me? Naughty, naughty." His smile became thin and tight.

She giggled. "There was a family here earlier today. They'd just had their first little girl. Six brothers, what a lucky family. The boys were in the play room for a while, and when the family was leaving, they counted SEVEN little boys, and had to figure out which one had to stay."

"What do you mean, he's still here, isn't he?" Lucius was alarmed.

"Oh, yes, but wait till you see what caused the confusion!"

"Tell me or show me," he ordered through smiling lips and gritted teeth.

"Right this way," she giggled again as she opened the door to the playroom.

Standing right in the middle of the scattered toys was Richard. Richard with bright red hair. Lucius had to sit on a chair, he was so stunned. What would the Dark Lord say?

"All the little boys were red-headed, and Richard, well, that's his first magic!" she cried.

He stared at her, then at the child, who grinned and toddled to him, his arms out, his hair turning back into dark golden curls.

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The Healer carried the sleepy toddler in her arms and stood him up on the floor of the Wizengamot Courtroom, then pulled out her sheaf of parchments and started intoning Lucius Malfoy's contributions to St. Mungo's Hospital. "Following the pattern set by his father and grandfather, Mr. Malfoy has been a most generous donor to St. Mungo's..."

The toddler clung to her robes, hiding his face for a few moments, then looked around for someplace to rest.

"…Mr. Malfoy, as an anonymous donor, contributed to the care and housing… "

The toddler was tired, but curious. His nose needed wiping.

"More importantly, since becoming the Merlin Richard's benefactor, Mr. Malfoy has been at St. Mungo's every Thursday morning for no less than two hours in a visit, rocking him, reading to him, caring for him..."

The room was huge, and there were people sitting up on the walls, a few were standing by a chair. Richard saw a familiar man sitting in the chair.

"On Halloween morning, the day of the Potter's deaths, Mr. Malfoy was at the paediatric wing's party, dressed as Captain Hook, entertaining the children…"

With his finger in his mouth, Richard stumbled over and leaned against the man's leg, rubbing his nose on his robes, and tugged on them.

Lucius looked down, a bit surprised, then picked the waiting toddler up and seated him on his lap. Richard clung to his robes for a moment longer, rubbed his nose again, then sighed and fell asleep in the crook of his arm, his finger still in his mouth.

People were milling around when he woke up. "He's so sweet!", "You're a natural father, Lucius.", "I had my doubts, but when I saw you with that baby…", "Hey, can you come baby-sit my lot?", "Whew, someone needs a nappy change.", "Glad you're innocent.", "Isn't he the cutest little character witness?"

Mr. Malfoy demurred, smiling, his arms protectively around the toddler, gently rocking him. Richard sat and blinked, his finger in his mouth, then buried his face in the man's robes to hide, his hair bright against the black wool.

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Narcissa was more than shocked when Lucius's "business" with St. Mungo's was made public; she was furious. She was also very annoyed at Lucius's insisting that it was on the Dark Lord's orders he had kept it a secret from everyone, including her. She was relieved to learn that the hospital was keeping the boy with his spell-damaged mother. The two resided at the living quarters St. Mungo's had for the families of administrators and staff. As a few of the families also had small children the boy's age, the little community had basically "adopted" them. The mother was fine physically, and had recovered memories of old Welsh folk songs, but nothing else. She was able to care for her own child. There seemed to be no threat that he would end up on the Malfoy doorstep.

Publicity of his kindness to the child seemed to wipe out the taint in the public's memory of Lucius's associations with convicted Death Eaters, and protected the Malfoy reputation when her sister and brother-in-law were sent to prison. For these two reasons alone, she tolerated his continued visits to the boy.

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"He's doing what?"

"Helping out in the apothecary," Healer Matthews casually answered. Lucius had come for his visit, but Richard was not there to meet him at the door, so now the wizard and his escort were going to the child.

"But he's too young to be working. He's barely three years old. What are you doing, making him a slave?"

"He's 'working' with my son, Matt." The Healer's voice was suddenly icy.

The two adults reached the room where three-year-old Richard and his same-age friend Matt were sorting a small tub of Flobberworms. Or sort of sorting. Richard had a Flobberworm in his now light brown hair, and Matt wore two on his shoulders.

"Actually, I wouldn't call it 'help'," said the Healer, warmth and amusement now in his voice. "And it sure doesn't look like 'work'," he added as the two threw the slimy things at each other. "And if there's a 'slave' in the picture, I'd said it was Smyth," he said, referring to the hospital's Potions master. "Those boys have her wrapped around their little fingers."

The twosome looked up and gave Lucius a couple of gleeful grins.

Lucius had been a Quiddich player, playing Bludger for Slytherin, and later for a European team, but nothing had prepared him to be chased, out-manoeuvred and caught by two little boys. Laughing and crowing, they mercilessly wiped their Flobberworm-slimed selves on his robes. Lucius then cheerfully punished them with sundaes at the ice cream shop.

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Lucius took Draco and Richard to the children's matinee of "A Midsummer's Night Dream." Narcissa had begged off attending, due to a headache, so he gave her ticket to Matt and was able to get Matt's dad tickets a couple of seats over.

Draco fell asleep immediately. Matt sat and kicked the chair in front of him until his father leaned over the people between them and threatened the four year old with taking him straight home with no stop for ice cream, after which, Matt sulked until he feel asleep. But Richard knelt on his chair seat and could not keep his eyes off the stage. Lucius could not keep his amused eyes off the child. The child oohed at the magical drops that fell from the flowers, he laughed at the man with the head of a donkey, he danced his head to the fairies' songs and puzzled over the people while they talked and chased each other around the stage. The Lovers, the Moon, the Wall and the Lion were real to him, and he laughed and clapped at the end, and as the actors took their bows, he jumped up on his seat.

"I'm Richard Goodfellow!" he crowed, arms out, head back.

Lucius was not pleased. Goodfellow, the name of a servant, a foolish name. What wizard ever had the name "Goodfellow"? What would the Dark Lord say?

"And you're," the boy shoved his finger into the man's shoulder, "King Oberon!"

"You're absolutely right, Master Goodfellow!" he smirked. The actor had been unusually handsome. And besides, who would tell the Dark Lord?

Richard giggled and shrieked with laughter. People leaving the rows of seats turned and smiled at joyous noise.

At that moment, in the Rooms of Records in St. Mungo's Hospital, the Ministry of Magic, and at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, pages turned themselves to the name "Richard" and magical quills wrote "Goodfellow" for the surname.

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"I wish you were my dad," Richard commented one ordinary day as the threesome was eating lunch in the hospital cafeteria. He was five years old.

"Why, so you could have a pony?" Lucius asked, remembering his argument with Draco and Narcissa that morning.

"No, so you could live here at St. Mungo's with me and Mum."

Matt scowled. "I'd rather have the pony." His mum was going to have a baby.

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Narcissa was spending the day at her mother's and had reluctantly agreed to Lucius having a few associates over while she was gone. That one of the associates was from St. Mungo's and would be bringing Richard was not mentioned. He had sent the disgusting house-elf, Dobby, on a fool's errand, with instructions not to come back before the social ended.

He left the two boys in the playroom while he went to fetch tea, hoping that they would get to know each other a bit. One the way back, he stopped outside the door to peek in and listen to their conversation. Draco was five years old, Richard, six.

"If you're a Merlin, then your father's an abicass, an incubu, an incabus..." Draco struggled with the unfamiliar word, Richard watching, puzzled.

"He's a demon," Draco finally spat out.

"A demon? Like a devil? Cool!" Richard replied.

Lucius grinned.

"It's right here in this book."

"Can I see it?"

"Why?"

"Well, if my dad's a demon, does that mean I have more magic than you?"

"I don't think so. I'll have to look at the book."

"Here, let me look."

"No! Let go!"

There was a noise of a tussle, and it took Lucius a few moments to put down the tea set to dash to through the door into the room.

He stopped to see Richard calmly sitting on Draco, carefully turning the pages of the book, while Draco lay on his stomach, howling, and trying to lift himself up.

What would the Dark Lord say? What would Narcissa say!

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Richard and Draco were both six years old when Healer Thompson arranged for a camp out in Wales at Freni-Fawr. The Perseids meteor shower was an annual event for him, and he was excited about having the children and their parents out for it. Richard's mum, though, didn't want to leave the hospital, so the Malfoys were invited to be his surrogate family instead, an offer which Lucius and Draco gladly accepted, Narcissa, reluctantly. She knew that Dr. Mathias, Matt's mum, and other witches were going to be there. One couldn't turn down every single invitation and still have a respectable reputation. Lucius later saw the bill from the tailor; she had spent as much on a "casual" outfit for the evening as she did on her dress robes for the Ministry Ball.

Permission to use the hill had been given by the local magical folk. The hillside had been warded from Muggles, but not sheep. It seemed like the sheep would leave the people alone, but once they got used to them, the beasts were everywhere. Some of the wizards managed to ward off the animals at a respectable distance, but then came the task of _Scourgifying_ the ground. Still, the heath smelled of sheep dung, which affected everyone's appetite. The dusk deepened, the stars came out, and the meteors started streaming across the sky. Draco knew how to count to one hundred, and had counted twenty "streamers" and lost count on the ones that simply fell by the time his mother felt she could graciously leave. She was not a little annoyed that Lucius wanted to stay, but when Draco begged, she relented on the condition that they were home inside of two hours.

Lucius was lying on a blanket, with Richard and Draco on either side, using his stomach as a pillow. Draco had counted thirty-four streamers. Other families were nearby in the summer darkness, quietly making family noises, some talking, some laughing, some whining.

"I hear music," Richard commented.

"What kind of music?" Draco asked.

"It's the song my mum sings. I don't know the words, but it sounds like it."

Lucius stared up at the stars, and tried to hear it, but couldn't.

"Do you hear voices? If you hear voices, you're daft," Draco said confidently. "Thirty-five."

"I hear the words. They sound like my mum's. I don't know what it means, though."

"I think it means it's time you learned Welsh," said Lucius thoughtfully. That might have pleased the Dark Lord. Richard's mother would be pleased. Narcissa definitely would not be pleased. Two out of three. Oh, well.

"Can I learn Bulgarian?" Draco asked excitedly. "Then we could go to Durmstrang and everywhere you played at."

"Matt's dad can speak Bulgarian. He went to school at Durmstrang," Richard said.

"Thirty-six, thirty-seven and eight," said Draco.

Richard fell asleep at about sixty-two streamers, Draco at eighty-one. Lucius carefully moved the boys away from him, then stood and looked down on them in the starlight. He needed more light.

_"Lumos,"_ he quietly ordered his wand. In its dim light, he gazed at the sleeping boys for a while, studying their differences and their similarities._"Nox."_ The light vanished.

He carefully carried Richard to Matt's family, then picked up his and Narcissa's son, and cradled him in his arms. He looked up again at the night sky, counted nineteen more streamers, then one more, then Apparated back to their house.

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_Next: Why is Mr. Malfoy at the Ministry of Magic? Perhaps the Death Eaters have a point..._

_Notes: __**Lucius Malfoy's Favorite Charity**__ was originally posted as three separate "books" at another archive: __**Lucius/Charity**__ was originally the first three chapters, __**The Merlin **__was "Of House and Hunt", "Pranks and Tricks", and "Summer and a Stupid Fortune". The last book was __**The Merlin and Quirenius Quirrell**__. In a check of HP Lexicon, it seems that Quirinius can be spell either way; Sychophant Hex preferred it with an "e". Quirrell certainly wasn't a very popular character, and once he was disposed of in the first book, no one mourned his passing, and even Dumbledore, in Snape's memories in the __**Deathly Hallows**__, didn't seem to think he was worth more than a casual mention. Looking back over the whole, it looks like Snape's relationship to him was to have someone to bully. Which Snape and the rest of the staff sort of did in my story, __**The Joys of Apparation. **__And there was very little to go on - I had him go to school at Beauxbaton, as when he told Harry about his father and Snape loathing each other, Quirrell mentioned Hogwarts as if it was some other place. And unless JKR re-edits "inferni" for "zombie", it would be rather odd for a Hogwarts-taught adult to refer to use the term "zombie". I picked Brittany as his childhood place, as I supposed that, with its historical connections to England and Wales, that it would have been easier for him to shed any French accent he might have had, or that the aunt who raised him might have been more inclined to use English. I also wanted some distinct, magical landscape to be part of Quirrell's memories, and the lined-up stones certainly fit the description. At the end of the books, the only additional bit of information JKR gave us was that he had been the Muggle Studies teacher, so maybe he was Muggle born to begin with. _

_Thank you to all of you who have reviewed so far. I wish my responses could have been posted, as I answered out to __**duj**__ that 1) that chapter 3 & 4 overlap, as they were from two different books, and 2) Richard and Matt were not the most logical of wizards, and were simply a couple of naturally dense eleven year old boys, who did not recognize the girls at the Muggle summer street faire as being witches, because they never said that they were, and they weren't wearing Beauxbaton tee-shirts or waving their "batons" around._


	2. Chapter 2 Mr Malfoy at the Ministry

"I really don't think they should let the other sort in, do you? They're just not the same, they've never been brought up to know our ways..."

(The Ministry of Magic's) main job is to keep it from the Muggles that there's still witches and wizards up an' down the country...everyone'd be wantin' magic solutions to their problems."

_both quotes from PS (American SS)_

The Potterverse was created by and belongs to Jo. Goodfellow & Co. are my tribute to her.

For more descriptions and some photos of places named (such as the White Horse at Uffington and the Cerne Abbas Giant), see the web site for you" to somigliana for beta-ing!

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_Why is Mister Malfoy at the Ministry of Magic?_

Lucius Malfoy met with Healer Thompson about Richard's primary schooling. The Healer was far more relaxed than he had been at their first meeting, and Lucius had taken off his gloves to accept tea.

He got right to the point. "What kind of an education are he and the others getting with a teacher who is ill at least one week a month?"

"He's getting a good one," the Healer answered earnestly. "School is year round, so the times that the teacher's absent is like having the summer holidays, only spread across the year. The children aren't allowed to have time to forget what they've learned, and they seem the better for it. The teacher lives here at the hospital too, so schooling goes on practically all the time he's well. You've seen the regular group of students here; it's a small class, mostly Healers' and staff members' children, so there's lots of personal attention."

"But is Richard going to be ready for Hogwarts?" His grey eyes flashed.

Healer Thompson smiled. "Of course! St. Mungo's students are almost always at the tops of the classes there. And as for now, thanks in part to you coming here and reading to them, Richard's classmates were reading by the time they were five, and from there they've been getting everything else. You've read the fine quality of the boy's writing, and the good scores in math. I'd say the only thing lacking with our little school here are field trips. Everyone is so busy here, that no one has enough free time to plan good quality ones, let alone get them out of the hospital."

Lucius took the hint. For the times that Professor Lupin was indisposed, he and a few parents and off-duty staff members took the children via Portkeys out to the English countryside and coasts.

The best way to transport the dozen or so children and extra adults was by Portkey. All Portkey uses had to be registered and scheduled at the Ministry of Magic. Lucius became a regular visitor there, and often found himself pressed to take a few Ministry children with him on the field trips. Ministry personnel were also able to advise him on what activities would be most interesting, who would be the most effective tour guides, and where to set the wards to keep Muggles away. All of this was to his advantage, as it led to his being nominated as a governor for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Even Narcissa was impressed when he eventually received the appointment.

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One of the parents suggested teaching flying lessons, to make it a little easier to get around at some of the field trip sites.

Lucius had hardly been on a broom hardly since his father died, and never since getting married. Flying lacked the dignity required of the senior Malfoy, whoever he may be. But today on the moors, in the unexpectedly large company of Ministry of Magic officials and St. Mungo's personnel and their children, that role required broom riding.

The children were excited; most had not been on brooms, though a few were bragging about knowing how to do dips and barrel turns at high speed. Bragging turned to denials, and then to fists, which were sharply curtailed by the parents. In the end, there were neither dips nor barrel turns, just a number of green-gilled children.

Richard was terrified and clung to Lucius's arms as he tried to keep his balance. They flew a few feet, barely off the ground, and the six-year-old boy was begging to get down.

Matt and his father went a bit higher, a bit further at the boy's insistence, but then when they reached the ground, Matt tumbled off broom and promptly threw up on his father's feet. After more practices, Richard was able to relax and Matt quit throwing up, but neither became comfortable with the transport. Lucius offered to buy the two boys their own brooms, but the offer was declined; Mr. Malfoy had done plenty for the hospital's children, and besides, there was no place in London where the two could practice on their own.

Draco already had a broom, and had taught himself to fly. On the field trips, he flew circles around his father and Richard.

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At the beginning the trips were based on famous landmarks of Britain, with the first taking place at Uffington. There the group examined the White Horse that was cut into the hillside, puzzling for a grand three minutes over the great mystery. Then a couple of the girls trotted around, neighing and tossing their heads, pretending to be horses while the rest rolled down the hill until they were grass-stained and wonderfully exhausted. The troop then headed over to Dragon's Hill for a picnic.

Matt was unusually quiet and walked with Mr. Malfoy. "Mr. Malfoy, why are you walking so slowly? Something wrong with your eyes?"

"Why, Mr. Matthews, it is...just the wind... I got a piece of grass or dust in my eye." He blinked rapidly and smiled down at the boy. "It's all right. Go on; catch up with your friends. Tell them not to wait for me." By the time he reached the party, all the food was gone, but for a half-eaten biscuit Richard had saved for him, which Lucius gratefully accepted.

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"I'll be poo!" "I'll be pee!" "My turn to go up and watch!"

The day was cold and windy at the Cerne Abbas Giant. The children took turns, laughing and running up and down on the outline of the giant carved on the hillside, and hovering over it on brooms. No lecture was scheduled for that site, thank Merlin.

Healer Matthews and Healer Mathias, husband and wife, were standing near Lucius on a lower field, watching the children wear themselves out. She smirked up at her husband. "Makes you feel a little, ah, insignificant?"

He pulled her into a hug and kissed her, then hand in hand they continued watching the noisy children.

Despite the warming charms he had cast, Lucius felt cold. When the group returned to St. Mungo's, he did not stay for tea.

----------

On the school group's first trip to Wiltshire to visit Stonehenge, he took them to his house for tea. (Narcissa had taken Draco to London, and the miserable house-elf Dobby had gone with them.) It was actually a relief having the house (almost) to themselves. The Malfoy family had other house-elves that knew their places and were proud to serve the family, and kept the secrets of muddy footprints, broken teacups, messy washrooms, the evidence of a pillow fight in the parlour, and where all the cake went. It was a most satisfying afternoon, and the adults agreed to keep silent about the matter, allowing the visit to become an annual event.

No use upsetting Narcissa.

----------

On Bonfire Day the students, including Draco, Crabbe and Goyle, got to attend "The Annual Re-enactment of the Plot Against the Parliament". The pageant featured some of the ghosts who were actually there when it happened. Guy Fawkes himself made a rare appearance and chatted with the audience. Mr. Malfoy had made the arrangements for the children to have front row seats, so they all got a good look at him, and then afterwards they went out to watch the fireworks over the River Thames under the new moon.

----------

Queen Anne Boleyn visited with the group when it came to the Tower of London. When she was introduced to them, she did a curtsy, bowing her head and it dropped off! She deftly caught it in her skirt and flipped it up and it landed back on her neck! She sat with the children for a while and told them about her school days at Beauxbatons. The children then fed the ravens, visited with other ghosts, and shoved each other through the Tower windows.

----------

One night after a full moon, the group went to Windsor Castle. (Draco had to stay home; Narcissa foolishly thought that a werewolf might still be running loose.) The number of children had more than doubled, as so many Ministry members had added theirs to the lot. The adults were having a hard time herding the children to the scene of one of the goblin wars when one of the children shrieked with delight about seeing a ghost.

It was none other than Herne the Hunter, riding on the back of his giant elk, disappearing in the moonlight, reappearing in the shadow. His crown of a stag's antlered skull gleamed in the dark, his sardonic smile was that of a skull's, and his unblinking eyes were large and rimmed with fire. His tunic was horsehide, and his leggings and boots were of leather, silvered with ghostly blood. He still had his noose around his neck, and it swung as he moved. He dismounted and came over the group.

Lucius was delighted and went forward to greet him, his eyes eagerly taking in every detail, when he noticed the emblem burned onto the front of the tunic.

He stopped, stunned. "Hufflepuff?" he stammered.

"Slytherin," the ghost sneered back, walking through him and making him shiver.

For the rest of the tour, Herne the Hufflepuff Alumnus pointedly ignored him.

----------

Other places the school group went involving ghosts included a performance at the Theatre Royal Bath at Avon and a Spinney music recital at Sawston Hall in Cambridgeshire. They cheered battle re-enactments at Haydon Ditch (Giants vs. Saxons) and Woodcroft Castle (Cavaliers vs. Roundheads). They also visited various Roman ghosts in Cheshire and saw another re-enactment at Wiltshire (Romans vs. Britons). At Bleaklow Head in Derbyshire, a patrol of Roman soldiers put on a revue for them.

Most of the children agreed that the weirdest ghost was the World War II paratrooper at the Isle of Wights. He came parachuting down from the sky a few times, once or twice, without his head, and somehow seemed to think that the students would be impressed. It was very hard for them to be polite, but they felt that the visit had been ill advertised.

----------

During his many visits to the Ministry for Portkeys, Lucius was given news he hadn't expected. Receptionist Bertha Jorkins in the Department of Magical Transportation was a fountain of gratuitous information about, of all people, Harry Potter.

"The Obliviators just got back from his primary school," she gossiped. "He's been doing underage, wandless magic left and right. I understand his Muggle relatives are fit to be tied. It will be a miracle if he makes it to his eleventh birthday."

And another time she confidentially told him, "The Obliviators had to go to the Muggles' social services. Someone at the school complained that Harry Potter was being neglected by his relatives, as he's underweight, poorly dressed, and has bruises. He's been needing glasses for a while, I heard, and the relatives were forced to take him to an eye Healer for an exam. And get this: The eye Healer reported them too! With all the bad stuff his relatives have been doing, I wouldn't be surprised at all if he turns out to be a dark wizard. Just what we don't need."

No one was more sorry than Lucius when she was transferred to another part of the Ministry. No one, that is, except for those in the department to where she had transferred.

----------

Amos Diggory, from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures was the guide for a number of field trips. His son Cedric was a year or two older than Richard and Matt, and stompled around wearing dragon hide boots that were a size too big. Lucius found Amos' s field trips to be very educational.

At the tide pools on the coast at Filey Brig in North Yorkshire, the group looked for Murtlaps, ratlike rodents that had a certain fungus growing on their backs. While Potions Master Jeanne Smyth told the children about how the fungus would protect one against most curses and jinxes, Amos told Lucius about how pollutions from Muggles were affecting the creatures. He also told him how the Muggles had driven a local species of benign dragons to extinction as they walked along the huge fossilised bones of a dragon, the North Sea splashing against it.

While flying over the nesting grounds of the Welsh Green dragons, Lucius learned how being under Muggle airplane and jet flight paths were disturbing the animals, and in Scotland, at the feeding grounds of the Herbridean Black dragons, how Muggle tourism land developments were damaging its ecosystem.

----------

One nighttime field trip had to be especially planned, as it would take place during a full moon. The group was going to spy on Mooncalves making crop circles. Ministry staff member Walden Macnair was assigned to the trip, to deal with any werewolves that might show up. Of all field trips, this was the tensest one. Almost every child from the Ministry of Magic was there, along with many of the parents.

Macnair brought a rifle that frightened the children: The Healers were not pleased.

Matthews took Lucius aside. "Tell him to take the rifle away from here. If he and the rifle are going to stay, then the St. Mungo's school group is leaving," he firmly stated.

"He is here to provide safety to the children," Lucius protested.

"One man with one rifle is not enough. And the rifle is wrong; at the very least it distracts from the purpose of the field trip."

Lucius gave a small smile. "There are werewolves. What do you suggest we do instead?"

He was not expecting the answer he got. Healer Matthews raised his hand and showed him the handgun in it. "Every adult here from St. Mungo's is armed with silver bullets. We are trained, we are practiced, and we are ready to protect the children, but we will not be 'showing off', as the Ministry representative has been tonight. He may be here as your personal guest, but without the rifle or any other firearm. He has not shown any gun safety sense since he's arrived."

Lucius decided quickly in favour of St. Mungo's. Macnair Apparated away with the rifle and came back empty handed, obeying Lucius' request. They both thought of shrinking or concealing the rifle, but Lucius suspected that Healer Matthews would know. It made him uneasy to realize that the Healer would shoot to kill. Werewolves were not the only magical beings that could be done away with a silver bullet.

The group sat on the hilltop and took turns flying the children over the fields, hovering over the oblivious mooncalves. The full moon made the sky almost starless by its brightness, and lit the farms and fields for miles. The children chattered and shivered in the night air, while the adults from St. Mungo's flanked the group, facing outwards, with little quiet glints of silver flashing occasionally. Lucius and Macnair quietly visited as they watched as outsiders, catching up on old times, wondering if and when the Dark Lord would return, and if the Potter boy would indeed be a new dark wizard.

----------

Healer Matthews took charge of the field trip to Llyn-y-Fan Fach, a lake in Wales. It was a hot summer's day; Richard was nine. Everyone was to come with bathing suits, but Lucius opted out, citing business in Diagon Alley. However, he would come for the minimum amount of time on land. He laughed to see the children frolic in the water, then watched as they had Bubble-Head Charms put on them so they could visit the merpeople that lived in its depths. He conjured the snacks and drinks when they returned, then quickly left for the meeting.

The Death Eaters were regrouping.

Muggles generally came into the wizarding world with their spouses. Most knew their places (no more than three feet away from their spouses), and what was expected of them (keep quiet and tell no one about the wizarding world). Some did not; some stuck out like an American tourist at High Tea, and treated the wizarding world as a freak show, or worse, as if it were some third world country ripe for exploiting. Witches and wizards who made such poor choices in their Muggle mates did not deserve to live, and, in past years, were targets for Death Eaters. The Death Eaters were busy dealing with the various targets when a Mudblood's son interrupted them, forcing them into unemployment.

But now the birthrate of Mudbloods was rising alarmingly. And with Mudbloods came more Muggles and greater threats to the wizarding world.

Mudblood students brought their Muggle family members into Diagon Alley, where the prices of unicorn horns and other commodities were forced up due to the purchases of those who had no appreciation of the "souvenirs" they were buying; such commodities were becoming scarce, affecting the wizarding world's economy and its ability to meet demands. Mudblood students were also polluting the ancient customs and traditions with their Muggle music, clothing, customs, slang, diseases, addictions and generally disrespectful attitudes. Lucius had some investments in Muggle companies, but his were drops in the huge ocean of international commerce. Some parents of Mudbloods had sought to purchase businesses or become "silent partners", further affecting the wizarding world by not remaining silent on how businesses should be conducted. Imagine cheap ballpoint pens in Hogwarts.

----------

It was July. Lucius waited for news of the Hogwarts letter, trying in vain to keep his anxiety from Narcissa. Richard would be turning eleven, just before school started. What if the letter didn't come, what if Richard was assigned to wait another year, to be in the same class as Draco? What if the letter came from Durmstrang instead, or worse, Beauxbatons, or some other school further away? What had the Dark Lord wanted? What if the owl came to Narcissa first, or if Richard used the Floo and he wasn't here? He chided himself for his insecurities, but worried nonetheless.

Finally the owl did come, but it was a day later when Lucius was able to slip away for a few hours to St. Mungo's.

Richard already had his robes; Matt's mum had taken the boys and Richard's mum to the second hand robe shop at the end of June, and had them altered to allow plenty of growth, meaning that the robes were at least one size too large. Their books were second-hand; Matt's father having taken them to the booksellers the hour the letter arrived. His Potions materials he had earned that summer by doing odd jobs for the hospital's Potions Master, and his wand and school materials had been paid for from the St. Mungo's students' account, to which all the parents (and Lucius) had chipped in. The only job left for Lucius was to take the new students out for ice cream. Pity.

Finally the day came for Richard to take the train. Lucius thought it would be too sentimental to see him off, and spent the first part of the morning trying to ignore the occasion. Finally, ten minutes before the train would pull out, he Apparated to the train station, and stepped immediately away from the Apparition point at the far back of the boarding area.

It was as chaotic as when he had been a student.

Most of the students were on the train, leaning out of the windows. Some were still scrambling to get on. He scanned the crowd of parents for anyone from St. Mungo's but saw no one. The last of the luggage was pulled aboard; more heads were at the windows. The train started to pull away, and there, there was Richard, and Matt, and a few more of the school children, leaning out and waving to their invisible parents. The train picked up speed. Richard looked up, saw him and gave a gleefully frantic wave. Lucius lifted a gloved hand in a returning salute. The boy was gone.

Lucius stepped back to the Apparition point and left the station.

------------------------------

_Next: Why is Mr. Malfoy at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?_


	3. Chapter 3 Mr Malfoy at Hogwarts

It's all Jo's.

"Thanks" to my beta somigliana, and to LariLee for her help.

**Why is Mr. Malfoy at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy?**

"Of course, watching the Sorting is an excellent idea, Lucius. I doubt if any of us have seen one since our own graduations."

It had been two weeks before school was due to start when the resolution to attend the Sorting was put forth to the Governing Board, seconded, and ratified.

On the evening of the Welcoming Feast, the school governors Apparated to the outside of the school's gates. Professor Flitwick met them to escort them to the building and to assist with the Disillusionment Charms that they would wear. He then directed them to the seats reserved for them, just inside the doorway of the Great Hall. The focus of the evening, after all, was to see a "typical" Sorting, and not to draw any attention away from the time honoured proceedings.

The Sorting Hat was already on its stool, off to the side of the teachers' table, and seemed to be moving on its own, as though watching the governors across the room. Finally, the new students were marched into the room and down the centre aisle. All Lucius could see of Richard and Matt were the backs of their heads as they appeared and disappeared in the group. The students looked small as they made their ways to their destinies. 

The hat sang its nonsense, then one by one, the students came up and the hat shouted their houses.

Richard's turn came. Lucius felt a little foolish wanting to cross his fingers for "Slytherin". The hat seemed to look out over the sea of heads to where he sat. It smirked before being put on the boy's head, and sat there for a tantalizing moment before shouting, "RAVENCLAW." 

The Ravenclaw table had a burst of excitement, as the students from St. Mungo's went into a welcome chant: "MUN-go, MUNG-go, go, go MUN-GO!"

Under the cloak of the charm, Lucius felt disappointed, saddened, and slightly worried. Of course, the boy had been practically raised a Ravenclaw at the hospital, but still, there had been that chance for Slytherin. The possibility of Draco and the boy becoming regular associates, or maybe even friends, was now implausible. Narcissa would be thrilled. What would the Dark Lord say if he were here? Lucius was grateful not to know.

The boy seemed radiant about the decision as he went and sat at the table, and joyous when Matt was sorted and ran to sit next to him. Lucius was then, in his own way, happy for him.

After the last student was Sorted and the feast began, the governors quietly slipped out of the doors then went to reminisce and celebrate in Hogsmeade.

-----

_Lucius, _

Four o'clock in the afternoon would be fine for your visit. 

Severus

The meeting in Professor Snape's office had barely started when it was interrupted by shrieks and shouts from down the hallway. Lucius was on his feet and out the office door before Severus left his desk. Lucius hurried through the empty classroom and past the doors to the private quarters, bursting into the Slytherin common room and pushing its doors open with his gloved hands.

A group of second year boys were piled up, wrestling around on the floor, a mess of robes, hands, heads and feet. Other students were laughing and shouting from other parts of the room. Lucius stopped, stood his ground and pulled out his wand. "Off him," he snarled, pointing to the pile.

A Stinging Hex got one student's attention. He jumped up, alarmed and red-faced. "Hey, mates, stop, get up."

No one paid attention. Another Stinging Hex and suddenly a half-dozen Slytherins were on their feet, shocked at the sight of a strange wizard in their common room and their Head of House standing with him, both glaring at them.

A small first-year Ravenclaw was on the ground, groaning, blood streaming from his nose and mouth. Blood was also in his brown hair, on his robes and smeared on the floor.

The man strode forward and bent over the boy. "Richard, are you all right? Can you get up?"

The boy grinned, his dark grey eyes gleaming. "Yes, sir. Just having some fun." He wiped at his face and looked at the blood. "Making a mess, though. Sorry about that." He tried to sit up, and fell back.

Both men assisted him to his feet, where he swayed slightly, then leaned on the blond haired man.

"Come on, Richard, let's get you cleaned up," the man said.

"First, how did he get in here?" Snape frowned at the Slytherins. The man and boy stood still to hear the answer.

The second years shuffled around, and finally one of them spoke. "He was bothering us, and when we were going to let him have it, he begged us not to do it in the Slytherin common room."

"So, since he didn't want it here, we dragged him here…"

"We thought…" 

Professor Snape and Lucius both looked at Richard. He had a wicked grin on his still bleeding face; his eyes were sparkling with mischief.

"You were not thinking," Snape coldly interrupted. "He wanted you to bring him here."

"I don't understand," Lucius said.

Richard snickered. "We're having a scavenger hunt, sir. 'Bring something from each of the common rooms.' I'm going to win, 'cause I got in!" he bragged. 

"Thief!" one of the boys shouted. "What were you going to steal?" Both men glared at the student and Lucius' wand twitched.

"Nothing I wasn't given!" Richard jeered back, nearly falling over.

"Then what bloody 'something' are you taking," another sullenly asked.

"A 'bloody', bloody nose!" Richard sneered.

Lucius laughed and pulled him into a one-arm hug. "Come on, Richard, is there anything else you want?" he asked, looking at Severus.

The students shifted, wondering at the relationships between the Head of House, the man and the Ravenclaw, and what it meant to them. Richard looked around the sparsely decorated room and its occupants, shrugged and said, "I guess I'll have a necktie."

"Very well, then," Professor Snape said, eyeing the student who had called Richard a thief. "Mr. Johnson, kindly give him your necktie." 

Johnson glared as he yanked his necktie off and forced it into the Ravenclaw's hand.

"Thank you, Mr. Johnson." Richard smirked. "So nice to have met you all. Lovely place you have here, my compliments to your decorator. Ta ta, for now." He swept into a bow and turned to go, but stumbled against Lucius. 

"Thank you, Severus." Lucius' lips smiled, but not his eyes. "I trust things will be taken care of here. I'll be back in your office in half an hour to continue our meeting." And with that, he assisted the Ravenclaw out the common room's main passage, leaving behind a roomful of very worried students and an extremely annoyed Head of House.

-----

Severus was back in his office when Lucius returned with Richard. The boy was still grinning.

"Severus Snape, my protégé, Mister Richard Goodfellow. Mister Goodfellow, Professor Severus Snape." Lucius wanted the introductions done properly.

"How do you do?" the boy formally intoned.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance," the professor answered. "How are you now?"

"Much better, thank you," he coolly replied.

"Madam Pomfrey got him cleaned and fixed up in a heartbeat," Lucius said. "You're excused, Richard. Still have the tie? Good, and good luck." He gave the boy a gentle cuff and sent him on his way. Richard gave him another grin and waved the necktie as he left. Lucius then sighed, and gave a thin smile as he and the professor both sat down. "Well, now you've met Richard." 

"Be assured that, from now on, he is safe with the Slytherins in his year and older." Severus replied.

"I wish he would have been selected for Slytherin," Lucius said. 

"He's certainly ambitious," Severus remarked. "I think he's the first non-Slytherin to have gotten into the common room in years."

There was a pause. Severus waited for him to speak.

Lucius leaned forward. "Severus, I'm asking for a personal favour, and I hope you'll find it to your satisfaction." His troubled grey eyes looked at the black ones. "Give Richard a job here in your classroom, maybe doing inventory on a regular--perhaps a daily, or weekly--basis. He did something like it at St. Mungo's, so he won't need much training or supervision." Lucius hesitated, and then continued his request. "And please let me know how he's doing at school. He may or may not write; you know how students are, and I know no one socially who has a student in his class in Ravenclaw. I am concerned for him."

Severus nodded. "I will give it some consideration, and will let you know how he is regardless of my decision."

Lucius smiled.

The Dark Lord would have been pleased.


	4. Chapter 4 Of House and Hunt

__

The Potterverse was set up by JKR - Richard Goodfellow and his non-canon associates are mine. And, yes, the Ravenclaw Common room looked different in book seven, but that's because certain former students decided to "clean things up" before the Tri-Wizard Tournament and scrapped the furnishings described here. They were the ones who hauled in the statue of Rowena Ravenclaw from where it had been stored in another part of the castle. The rooms described here are how Richard saw it.

****

Of House and Hunt

On the first day of September, at nine sharp, Richard Goodfellow, Matt Mathews and their families went through the barrier at King's Cross station.

It was the boys' first time to the station. The crowd was still thin; they were able to get their trunks on the train easily and find the compartment that the older St. Mungo's students had reserved for them. The two clambered off the train to say good-bye to their parents. Both mums had tears on their cheeks as they hugged and kissed their sons good-bye. Matt's dad gave both a kiss on the tops of their heads, a hearty handshake and push back to the train.

The train began to pull out of the station. The boys grinned at the sensation of the train's starting jerk and slow build up of speed. They leaned out the window once more to wave to their parents. Richard happened to look up and see Mr. Malfoy, his benefactor, further back in the crowd. He gave a frantic wave, to which Mr. Malfoy lifted a gloved hand in salute, and then the walls went by as the train left the station.

They sat back, bouncing on the seats, laughing. In all their travelling across Britain, this was their first time on a train. Augustus Pye and his younger brother, Jerome, were also in the compartment. The other Mungos were next door.

The Pyes went over the rules with the first-year Mungos for the umpteenth time, as though no one else had bothered to share them all summer. The rules were simple. Rule one: Do not annoy Argus Filch. He's a Squib, but he doesn't want others to know. When no one else is around, he'll be good to you because and only because you're a Mungo. Don't ruin the relationship. Rule two: No walnuts. Rule three: When pulling a prank, the less magic used the better.

The landscape swooped by. The food cart came, and they stocked up for Hogwarts. Richard's trunk was filled with a large supply of sweets, thanks to Mr. Malfoy's generosity, but there was no knowing how much the Hufflepuffs would mark-up on the goods in their school shop. Richard fell asleep, leaning against the window as the others talked, moved back and forth between the two compartments and visited in the corridors.

The window was dark and the train had started slowing down when Matt woke Richard. They scrambled into their school robes, piled out of the train into the night air and ran over to where a gigantic man stood with a lantern, calling out, "Firs' years! Firs' years over here!"

-----

While waiting to be led into the Great Hall, Richard saw other first-year students whom he knew. Cormac McLaggen had been a semi-regular patient at the hospital because he was an accident-prone dunderhead, and once because his sister had stuck a walnut up his nose. Because her mum worked at the Ministry of Magic, Marietta Edgecombe and her best friend, Cho Chang, had been regular visitors on the field trips that Mr. Malfoy organized. The two girls had also been guests at St. Mungo's pizza nights in Muggle London. There were two or three boys that Richard had met while visiting Mr. Malfoy and some familiar faces from Diagon Alley, but he wasn't well acquainted with them.

The doors to the Great Hall opened, and they were marched in to the Sorting Ceremony.

Soon it was Richard's turn to sit under the Sorting Hat. It poked around his brain a bit. "Hmm, a Merlin. Haven't seen one in ages. You still don't know who your father is? You're living at St. Mungo's, yes, yes. The best place for you is-RAVENCLAW!"

The Ravenclaw table erupted, "MUN-go, MUN-go, go, go, MUN-go!" Richard ran to the table, and was soon joined by Matt. After the feast, he and his fellows went through the large two-way mirror that was the entrance to the Ravenclaw common room and its dormitories. He did not remember climbing into bed before he fell asleep.

-----

The next day, Sunday, the Ravenclaws had a meeting to welcome their newest members.

The Ravenclaw common room looked like bedlam. It had a lifeguard chair painted in primary colours, lofts, hammocks and ladders along the walls, mirrors and uncovered windows. Students had done the paintings in the room; some illustrations were very nice to watch, but some made one feel queasy as the colours moved into nightmarish contortions. There was a side room, where the walls were white, the furniture was traditional sofas and chairs, and a Silencing Charm was permanently in place; some Ravenclaws were too high strung to be comfortable in the larger, noisy common room.

Edmund Dory, the oldest student there, had everyone introduce his or her self, and share a little personal background. He then dismissed all but the first-years and his two assistants.

Chelsea Doon showed them the Book of Ravenclaw, where all the ins and outs of the castle, and the habits of the faculty and the staff were detailed.

Michael Aldwort taught the laws of the common room. No shoving or jumping off the lifeguard chair. Don't climb into any hammock that you can't climb out of. Don't swat at the fairies. Don't leave food lying around.

At the end of the meeting the threesome announced a scavenger hunt: Bring back something from every common room, something from a staff member, and something from the outside the castle. Meet back in the common room after dinner.

-----

Richard struggled as he was half-carried, half dragged down the back passage way to the Slytherin common room. His captors did not want to rouse their Head of House, who might have a different view on what should be done with the obnoxious first-year Ravenclaw.

"Wait! I'll Stun him!" someone shouted.

He heard the hex as it zinged past. _Missed!_ he thought, and immediately feigned being stunned.

He was hauled into the room and thrown on the floor. His captors apparently didn't notice that the "stunned" victim immediately rolled to his stomach, protecting his face and groin. All five of them pounced on him and started pounding on the small, eleven-year-old boy.

He knew that they wouldn't kill him. They would just knock him around until they got tired, and then shove him out the door. Any time now, they'd get tired. Maybe they were waiting for him to make the first move, go unconscious, or bleed all over the place. He certainly wasn't going to try to fight back. He was foolhardy, but not stupid. _Any time now… _

One of the Slytherins jammed Richard's face into the floor.

_Ow! That hurt!_ He could taste blood in his mouth, and wondered how his teeth were.

His face was now being rubbed into the floor. On purpose or by accident, he couldn't tell. It didn't matter: It still hurt.

"Off him!" a voice snarled.

Richard started laughing with relief and joy. His tormentors fled as he rolled over onto his back, his eyes closed.

Mr. Malfoy was here!

-------------------

After rescuing Richard from the bullies and making sure that the Slytherin student had paid for his crimes with the loss of his necktie, Mr. Malfoy helped Richard out the common room door, and down the hall a few paces, then stopped and got down on one knee to examine Richard's face. The benefactor's eyes were full of concern and pride, his face full of mirth. He took his handkerchief and dabbed at the boy's bloody nose.

"What a wonderful mess you have there, Richard. Good thing I had that meeting with Severus," he said, his eyes gleaming with amusement. He grinned. "I want you to tell me all about how you got in this mess, and everything else that has happened here at school." He stood up, put his gloved hand on the young boy's shoulder, and guided him to the hospital wing.

As Richard talked, the man listened to every word, asked questions and laughed. In the hospital, the boy was cleaned up and examined. Mr. Malfoy was very relieved to learn that Richard would have a few bruises, but no lasting damage.

Then it was back to Professor Snape's office, from where Richard took his leave of Mr. Malfoy and returned to the business of the Ravenclaw scavenger hunt.

-----

By that evening, Richard had brought back the green necktie from Slytherin, some lemon drops from the headmaster, a half-eaten slice of pizza from the Hufflepuff common room (thanks to Cedric Diggory), a sofa pillow from Gryffindor common room (Cormac helped him get it), a four-leaf clover, and Ravenclaw's House ghost, the Grey Lady.

Matt had Professor Quirrell's class notes (he found them the staff room), what he thought was a small dried up pumpkin from a garden (it was dragon dung), a completed Rubik's cube from Ravenclaw, sheet music from Hufflepuff, a cat that belonged to a Slytherin (who was standing outside the Ravenclaw room, ranting while the cat scratched and hissed at Matt), and from Gryffindor, autographs from the chief pranksters of the school, the Weasley twins.

The common room was filled with stuff as the eight other new students added their stuff. Professor Quirrell's class notes were of great interest, and were passed around the older students. Everyone had some ice cream that Augustus Pye had brought in from Diagon Alley, using the Floo in the Hospital wing.

Richard and Matt's dorm room had three other boys, and a great view of the mountains. The bedcurtains were blue, the beds were comfortable, and the boys fell asleep almost immediately.


	5. Chapter 5 Pranks and Tricks

**Of Pranks and Tricks**

After a month of classes, the two Mungos went to work on pulling pranks. The teachers turned a blind eye to them; they knew that Matt and Richard would only be crazy for this one school year. Next fall they would start their apprenticeship training with Madam Pomfrey and be scraping Quidditch players off the ground; they had their whole lives ahead of them to be Healers. For now, they agreed in their staff room visits, let the boys be boys.

The Mungos used all the Muggle tricks they had bought at a joke shop in London: A toy snake that exploded from a can, a chewing gum pack with a finger trap, pepper gum, blackening soap, marked cards--simple toys that many students fell for. The twosome hid a whoopee cushion on the Headmaster's chair before dinner one night. Professor Flitwick couldn't stop laughing and squirted pumpkin juice out of his nose.

Others were also pulling pranks, the Weasley twins especially, with toys from Zonko's and magic-hued silliness, but they got the detentions while, most of the time, the Mungos got the wink.

----------

Matt and Richard slipped out of the castle just as dinner was finishing. Each had on two sets of robes, hiding their swim trunks and towels. It was still daylight; the prank had to be done while there was enough light to see by. This would be their most magical one, and they wanted nothing to go wrong.

They walked down the path to the lake, pausing by one tree long enough to quickly slip off the top robes and stash them up high, where they wouldn't be easily found, just in case anyone else was wandering about. Then they hurried on down to the point of the lake closest to the Slytherin common room. Off came the robes, shoes and towels, to be stashed under a bush. Out came a bottle of peppermint oil and a jar of Gillyweed.

As they smeared the oil on their feet, Richard remarked, "I read the _Fantastic Beasts_ book about Grindylows, and it said nothing about peppermint oil."

"My dad always said Newt Scamander knows nothing about water animals or merpeople," Matt replied. "We've been in Llyn-y-Fan Fach and to other lakes plenty of times, and the Grindylows have never attacked us. It's because of the peppermint oil. They can't stand it."

"I know. I was with you. I just think it's funny that your dad knows so much about the lakes. What do you think he'll do when he hears about this prank?"

"You don't tell my dad, and I won't tell Mr. Malfoy," he retorted. "Just hope the giant squid is asleep. We don't need to be rescued."

The two waded into the water until they were hip deep and freezing. Richard gave half the Gillyweed to Matt.

"Go for the gills!" they crowed and crammed the rubbery plant into their mouths, chewed and swallowed. It took less than a minute for their necks, hands and feet to start to ache, then burn as the flesh reformed. Their breathing became ragged. They could not inhale: They were suffocating. They dove into the water and felt its oxygen relieve their bodies. The lake felt lukewarm. Their hands and feet quit hurting when their webbings were completed.

The sky's light was dimmer underwater, but the light from the Slytherin common room was bright. A ways out in the water they could see what looked like the shimmer of a ghost. Who knew that there would be a ghost in the lake? Something they'd have to look up in the Ravenclaw Book of Hogwarts when they got back. A couple of merpeople—perhaps guards—swam up. Matt and Richard had met merpeople before on some St. Mungo field trips and were able to give proper greetings and the password: "Myddvai". The merpeople were curious, but stayed nearby, watching as the boys approached the windows.

They swam up to the window as the Slytherins were coming back from dinner. No one noticed them. It was like watching a portrait filled with students moving, sitting, reading and talking. Over in the corner, there was an older boy and girl, teasing each other with their hands. A Gobstone game was going on next to the fireplace. The room looked drab with its black leather and green walls, with its silver framed portraits. The portraits noticed them first. Mouths were moving soundlessly, fingers pointing at them. Like puppets lined up on one string, the Slytherins turned and gaped at them. Matt and Richard grinned at each other, then carefully pressed their hands, their noses and then their stomachs against the glass. Then they stuck out their tongues and crossed their eyes.

The Slytherin room quietly, quickly erupted like a swarm of Doxys. Some students ran up to the window, others ran to the far side of the room. One or two students fled the room. More ran into it from what they guessed were the dormitories. A door flew open and Professor Snape swooped soundlessly into the room.

The currents in the water were pulling at them, so the boys decided that it would be a good time to leave. Richard and Matt pushed off the glass with their feet and swam back the way they had come. The two merpeople went with them, and the foursome stayed beneath the water a few more minutes, communicating in very simple Mermish. Then their necks, hands and feet were aching again, and it was time to resurface.

There was a madman on the shore, tearing at his hair and screaming as he paced up and down. Matt and Richard looked at each other. Now how were they going to get out, get their clothes, and get back to the safety of Ravenclaw tower before the Slytherins came crawling out of the dungeons? The water was freezing!

They carefully swam over to the edge of the lake, a few bushes away from the man. If they were careful, they could get to the first cache of robes without him noticing. But someone else was watching too.

"Now, how did you two come ter be out here?" It was Hagrid, the gamekeeper, stepping out of the trees. They were caught.

The madman whirled around, spittle flying from his mouth. It was Professor Quirrell!

"I THOUGHT YOU HAD DROWNED! I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!" He was so furious, he didn't stutter. "GET BACK! BACK TO THE SCHOOL!" he shouted hoarsely at them, pointing to the castle. The two eleven-year-old boys ran, tearing their robes out of the tree as they worked on keeping distance between themselves and the mad professor. Hagrid's booming laughter cheered them on, and they didn't stop running until they crashed into Professor Snape.

Two weeks of detention: One from Quirrell, one from Snape. It was worth it.

----------

The teachers were fair game for the twosome--threesome, actually, as the Grey Lady helped with lookout.

Matt and Richard jammed the door of the teacher's staff room shut. Professor Binns drifted through the wall to examine the situation and reported that coins had been shoved in the hinges. No magic was used for the stunt, so Flitwick suggested that no magic be used to get out of the room, giving the locked-in faculty an excuse to stay put. Quirrell was given the task of opening the door while the teachers continued their reading, visiting and snacking. After half an hour, Snape got tired of watching the man attempt the impossible and sent a house-elf to pull out the coins.

A few weeks later, the boys replaced the dead rubber plant in the teacher's lounge with Devil's Snare; something Sprout identified immediately, but left to see who would catch the joke. Quirrell commented on how nice it was to have something fresh and sat next to it.

The boys discovered Professor Trelawney's classroom, and switched the cups and poufs around, and hid the window coverings. They also hid the ladder, but they never saw the professor. Ravenclaws, after all, didn't take Divination classes.

Matt took old magazine covers that Madam Pince had tossed and used them to cover naughty magazines, then left them in the library. How some of them ended up in the staff room was a mystery.

From time to time, Richard wore the necktie he acquired in the Slytherin common room, smirking as he brazenly took food from the Slytherin table in the Great Hall under the watchful eye of their Head of House.

The twosome watched every Quidditch match from the stands, while the rest of the Mungos waited below to tend to the injured. They discovered the clandestine cricket and soccer games and played just as badly as they did at the pick-up games of Quidditch. They placed fourth (out of five) in the Live Hedgehogs Croquet Tournament. One game they didn't play was Gobstones; after all, they'd had enough of it at the hospital.

Every Thursday, Richard sent his mum and Mr. Malfoy letters using the school's owls. Mr. Malfoy owled often, and sometimes sent Richard a souvenir from Diagon Alley, Hogsmeade or Europe.

Richard's mum would owl pictures she had drawn, and sometimes candy from the gift shop at the hospital. Other staff members and two or three semi-regular patients owled from time to time, too. Professor Lupin, St. Mungo's School teacher, sent advice regarding study habits and suggestions for non-magical pranks. "Uncle Al", a semi-regular patient, sent reminders for "constant vigilance". He commended them for having the Grey Lady as an accomplice. 

Unknown to the boys, Uncle Al and Potions Master Smyth also sent thank-you notes to Mr. Filch for looking the other way, to which he replied, "No trouble at all, glad to be of service." The sixth and seventh year Ravenclaws could be counted on to secretly clean up any of their mess that Filch couldn't or didn't want to handle. And the boys, after all, were Mungo boys, and St. Mungo's was good to Squibs.

School wasn't all pranks; there were classes, and Richard had his job of inventorying the Potions cupboard every evening. Sometimes Professor Snape had detentions in the classroom, and sometimes it was just the Professor marking papers. They rarely spoke to each other, as there was very little need for conversation. Once Richard learned the more arcane ingredients, tidied up the books and tossed out assorted leftovers, the job took fifteen minutes at most. He would write a short report of what needed to be refilled or what was going bad. The refill job was done by a seventh year Mungo under Madam Pomfrey's supervision. The seventh year left the school, via the dedicated Floo in the Hospital wing that went to St. Mungo's, to make the purchases at Diagon Alley.

And still, with everything going on (including Welsh Language Club and theatre productions), there was quiet time. The Ravenclaw Rehearsal room was an empty classroom near the Great Hall. It was there that Richard found "his" window, where he would sit like a cat and watch the doings of the students in the courtyard below, while studying his homework, visiting with the Grey Lady, or just letting his mind wander.

----------

About two weeks before school ended, the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher became deathly ill and was released from her contract. Professor Quirrell was given the job, having substituted for it a number of times. As he taught Astronomy, a night class, he had been able to step in at a moment's notice, and having taken the previous year off to travel and gain some "real-life" experiences, he was considered qualified to teach the subject full-time. 

Professor Sinistra came on board to take the Astronomy lessons and to prepare for the future.

The year ended. Slytherin won the house cup, with Ravenclaw a close second. The boys got back on the train, and Richard slept until King's Cross station. He woke up in time to see Mr. Malfoy, who seemed to be standing where he last saw him. Then he saw his mum, and it was to her that the eleven-year-old boy ran, all school dignity forgotten.

--------------------

Author's notes: Melissa Erin Friedline's essay "Quirrell's Leave of Absence" at the Harry Potter Lexicon, was the basis for the teacher's timeline. Harry saw Quirrell without the turban at The Leaky Cauldron. Learn about Myddvai (also spelled "Myddfai" elsewhere) at note: I thought I might have given the boys too much to do, however, the high schools just had graduations – compared to what some of the students here were doing, these two (and Hermione Granger) are slackers!


	6. Chapter 6 Summer and a Fortune

**Summer and a "Stupid" Fortune**

The boys had jobs in Diagon Alley that summer. Matt helped keep the cages clean at Magical Menagerie, and Richard unpacked and shelved potion ingredients at Slug & Jiggers Apothecary: simple jobs for pocket money that took only a few hours and left plenty of time to roam Diagon Alley when the hospital chores and language classes (Mermish, Welsh and Bulgarian) were done.

One set of chores was to read to Frank and Alice Longbottom, and assist them with their wheelchairs in the hospital gardens. They didn't like Mrs. Senior, as they referred to Frank's mum, and felt bad for her grandson, Neville. He had been invited to attend school at St. Mungo's, but she had made other arrangements. He would be attending Hogwarts the next year, and the two boys hoped that Neville would become a Ravenclaw, where they could make things better for him.

Another job was to go through the hospital and its grounds and keep them litter-free and tidy, three times a day. House-elf work, but the house-elves had plenty of other stuff to do. Besides, having the young wizards doing the work made those watching more mindful of how they behaved in their surroundings.

There were, of course, the fun events, such as St. Mungo's pizza nights at Dinty's Pizza Emporium ("Our food is magical"), and swimming at Llyn-y-Fan Fach, but all too soon, summer sped by.

-----

In late July, Richard and Matt were in Muggle London at a street faire, wearing the tee-shirts, jeans and trainers that Matt's mum had bought them a month earlier from a Muggle second-hand store. She and Richard's mum were examining hand-carved wooden items at one of the booths when the boys left them to find something more interesting than Welsh Wedding Spoons and picture frames.

They bought some food and wandered around, wondering if anyone from Hogwarts were there. Almost everyone they knew, including the Malfoys, were on holiday in France. The boys saw a group of girls tittering around a crystal ball, and decided to see what was going on. Muggles trying to be witches. Always good for a laugh. One of the girls saw Richard and shrieked, said something to the other girls and shooed them away.

She wore huge glasses that magnified her eyes; her head was covered with an assortment of bandannas and gold-threaded scarves. She wore necklaces of beads, chains and twine, with feathers, charms, shells, trinkets, and other pieces of small junk attached to them. Her wrists were covered with charm bracelets, Italian charms bracelets, plastic bracelets, friendship bracelets, and bangles. Her fingers had rings on every finger and her thumbs: plastic rings, metal rings, and rhinestone rings. Richard's first thought was that she would make a lousy Potions partner; something would be sure to fall into the cauldron. She was very thin, maybe a year younger than he was, and hyperactive.

"Let me tell you your fortune, Merlin." She had a French accent.

Richard was puzzled and looked behind him for Merlin.

"No, you, silly." She grinned at him, pointing at his chest.

He looked down. "Merlin's Bicycle Shoppe" was printed on the tee-shirt. He looked over at Matt, who was busy with the girls. He sighed. "How much?"

"Four pieces of silver."

He pulled out a handful of coins and slowly started to go through them, separating them into Muggle coins and Sickles.

"Those four." She grabbed his hand and snatched the Sickles, spilling the rest of the coins.

"Hey!" he protested. Wizard money in Muggle hands!

"Now, let me have a snip of your hair." She had grabbed a handful, and yanked on it, hurting his neck. She whacked off a chunk with a small pair of silver shears before he could twist away.

"Now, here we go!" She lifted the ball and sprinkled his hair over its curved holder, then plunked the ball back down.

Richard glared around for Matt, who was still encircled by the gaggle of girls. No help there.

The girl peered into the ball. Richard leaned forward suspiciously, trying to see what was so interesting.

"Back off, Merlin, you're making a shadow."

"Shows you what you know, my name's Richard."

"Hush." She ran her fingers over the ball. "You don't know anything. You are the spawn of two dragons, no, demons, wait, one's a devil."

"Are you crazy?"

"You will meet a tall black haired woman. Ooh! Kissing."

"That's stupid! There's a bunch of black haired women right over there. I'm not kissing them. Kissing is stupid! Give me back my money."

"Loser!" she snapped back. "Someone wants your body, but not your soul. That's bad. You will ask a question and you won't get an answer for a long, long time. You sure sleep a lot. Oh, and there's a pig."

Richard gritted his teeth. "Give me back my money."

"No way, Murtlap Breath!"

"I want my money! That's a stupid fortune! And give me back my hair before you use it for voodoo or something."

She made a face at him. "It's _your_ 'stupid' fortune, Merlin."

"My name's Richard!"

A woman's voice was calling out in sing-song fashion from the crowded street, "_Del-phi, Delphi Tre-lawney._"

"_Oui, mama,_" the girl called back. To Richard she simpered, "_Adieu,_ Dragon Spawn!" She shouted something in French and waved at the girls, who were still surrounding Matt, then ran off, still clutching the coins in her hand. The girls reluctantly left Matt and went back to the table.

"Lot of help you were, mate," Richard growled, picking up the Muggle coins off the ground. "Stupid French Muggle took my Sickles, and then gave me a stupid fortune and a bad hair cut."

"Ha! She scalped you. It looks awful. What did she say?"

"She kept calling me 'Merlin', and said I was dragon spawn, and she took my money. Four Sickles."

"She knew you were a Merlin?" Matt asked. "How could she know that?"

"Looked at my tee-shirt: 'Merlin's Bicycle Shoppe'. I guess it's a way of saying, 'hey, you'! But sick, dragon spawn? And she called me Murtlap Breath. That's stupid, I haven't eaten any, and I brushed my teeth. I want my money back."

"Wonder if they have any Murtlap for sale here," Matt remarked as he looked around. "Wonder what kind of Muggle food it is, something like a chipotle? Whatever that is. Let's go get some." He pointed to some other food tents.

"She took my money," he whined.

"Look, mate, say it one more time and I'll stick a walnut up your nose," Matt promised as he headed to the food.

"We aren't supposed to do magic out of school," Richard retorted.

Matt stopped and faced him, putting a finger in his face. "Number one, when has that ever stopped us or anyone else from doing it?" He held up two fingers. "And two, did I _say_ I would use magic?"

The two young wizards continued to argue their noisy way through the throngs, while trying strange foods like fish tacos and poi, until their mums found them and had them carry their purchases home.

The next day the owls arrived with their Hogwarts letters.


	7. Chapter 7 Rumours

**Rumours**

Richard spotted Mr. Malfoy in the crowd at platform nine and three-quarters at King's Cross station. He was going to run over to see him, then spotted Mrs. Malfoy and their son, Draco, standing with him. Richard took a step back, wheeled around on his heel, and got back to work getting his trunk over to the train. Matt's dad and Matt saw the whole thing, of course, but said nothing. Their mums were busy visiting with other parents.

After their good-byes, the two boys were hanging out a train window, watching the crowd. Mr. Malfoy pushed his way through, and came up to tell Richard good-bye and good luck. He told him that if he needed anything, to just owl. And to keep an eye on Draco for him, if he would, please. Richard grinned in reply, glad for his benefactor's attention. Mr. Malfoy slipped him a Sickle for the food cart, and rumpled Richard's hair affectionately with his black gloved hand before he returned to Mrs. Malfoy. The train lurched and started its way to Hogwarts.

The boys settled into the compartment, and then, as soon as the train was going smoothly, jumped out to the corridor and visited with other classmates. The gossip was pretty much the same up and down the corridor.

"Did you see him?" "What did you think?" "How is he going to last the year with THAT on his head." "How can anyone walk around looking like that?" "Everyone will be staring at him."

Richard ran into Cho Chang and Marietta Edgecombe. "What are you talking about?"

She rolled her eyes. "Quirrell's got a turban. A huge purple one," she laughed. "He was wearing it in Diagon Alley when we bought our school stuff. When was that?" she asked Marietta.

"Hmm, August? No? July? It was the day I bought that, um, rancid sandwich? I think?" she replied. Marietta almost always talked in questions. It drove both boys nuts.

"It's so big, he'll probably be banging it into doors. It just looks plain dumb," Cho sneered.

"Well, he's not the sharpest quill in the school," Matt said slyly.

Marietta looked at him and shrieked. "Pun! Quirrell, quill."

"Yeah, 'punny', ha, ha." Cho rolled her eyes again. The food trolley interrupted their visit, and the two girls went on to meet with their other friends.

After getting stocked up at the trolley, Matt went to visit some more while Richard got settled. He rolled one school robe to use as a pillow for his commuter's nap, and threw another over him as a blanket. He had just fallen asleep when he was rudely awakened.

"Hey! Gitfellow!" Someone was prodding him.

Matt blinked. There was only one person who would use that stupid nickname. "Hey, Dray, what's up?"

Draco and his two tag-alongs plopped themselves on the seat opposite of him. Richard sat up.

"Did you hear the news?" Draco asked eagerly.

"Yeah, I heard it looks really stupid on his head."

Draco looked puzzled. "Who told you that?"

"Cho and Marietta. They saw him in Diagon Alley, I guess."

"I was there a few times. I don't think I saw him. Didn't see you either. Where were you?"

"Murtlap harvest. Two weeks at the seaside." Richard shrugged. "But the way the girls described him, he was pretty hard to miss, especially with that thing on his head."

Draco leaned toward him. "What did it look like?"

"Well, like I said, I didn't see it, but they said it was purple."

"Purple?" Draco sank back in his seat. "How can a scar be purple?"

"A scar can't be purple. Bruises, yeah, but nobody said anything about scars."

Draco narrowed his eyes at him. Gregory Goyle looked lost. Vincent Crabbe looked out the window.

"Gitfellow, what are you talking about?" Draco frowned at him.

Richard frowned back. "Professor Quirrell. What are you talking about?"

Draco snorted. "Harry Potter. I heard he's on the train."

Richard frowned again. "Who?"

Draco smirked at him. "Har-ry Pot-ter," he said slowly. "Wake up, he's on the train. Want to go with us to find him?" he asked eagerly.

Richard shook his head. "No, I'm sure I'll see him at school." He pulled out a couple of Chocolate Frogs and started unwrapping one. Greg eyed it greedily.

Richard noticed. "Hey, Greg, want one? Mr. Malfoy paid for it. Catch!"

Draco scowled back at him.

"One more thing, Gitfellow," Draco said. "From now on, you will not call me 'Dray', and my 'good fellows' here, you _will_ call 'Crabbe' and 'Goyle'."

Richard shrugged. "Fine by me, as long as I'm not 'Gitfellow'. Okay by you two?"

Crabbe shrugged. Goyle, his mouth full of chocolate, nodded.

"Let's go," Malfoy ordered. Richard gave them a grin as they left. Hogwarts was going to be different with Draco Malfoy there.

Richard slept awhile longer, until a sullen Draco prodded him awake again, wanting Richard to entertain him and his friends, and refusing to discuss Harry Potter.

The school was visible from the train. Draco, Crabbe and Goyle went back to their compartment, Matt and Richard changed into their school robes.

The twosome left the train and followed the crowd over to the carriages. The Thestrals steamed in the night, their white eyes shining. They had heard that there were those who didn't see the winged horses; they could not imagine what it would be like as they climbed into a carriage that smelled of wood, leather, straw and Thestral dung. After all, seeing death was part of the birth right of a Mungo.

As they went up the stairs of Hogwarts, they saw that one of the staff members was up at the Great Doors, greeting students. "H-h-hello, h-h-how are y-y-you. W-w-wel-c-c-come b-b-back. M-m-mister G-g-goodfellow, h-h-how is y-y-your health?" Professor Quirrell smiled at the student, waiting for an answer.

"Uh, fine, thank you," Richard answered, trying not to snicker at the purple turban on the man's head. Why was he wearing it? Trying to cover his bald spot? Richard snorted as he went with the crowd into the Great Hall, the professor following in his wake.

Habits being what they are, Richard and Matt sat at the same seats that they had occupied the previous year. Many of the other students did the same, leaving empty the seats vacated by those who would not be returning. Everyone seemed to be talking at once, with joking by those who were seeing for the first time, what Cho referred to as, the Great Purple Pumpkin.

The first years were marched in. The topic turned to rumours of Harry Potter having been on the train, but no one at the table had seen him or heard from anyone who was a reliable witness. Ravenclaws demand reliable witnesses.

The Sorting Hat sang its song, and then the Sorting began.

Crabbe, Goyle and Draco Malfoy were sorted to Slytherin. No surprises there. The whole thing was rather predictable, until...

"Harry Potter!" Professor McGonagall sang out.

A collective gasp went up at the table. Richard, being the shortest one where he was sitting, stood up to see him, just as the hat went onto his head.

There was a pause, then the hat shouted, "GRYFFINDOR!"

Cheers broke out at the Gryffindor table, with the Weasley twins yelling, "We got Potter! We got Potter!"

The boy went to sit at the neighbouring table. He had dark hair, wore glasses, and looked very thin for his age. Richard had never seen him before, not even in St. Mungo's Hospital's waiting room. The famous scar was visible under the fringe of hair on his forehead. Richard wondered briefly of what it would take to have the scar gone, then was distracted as a first year Ravenclaw--Lisa Turpin--came to the table. There was to be no first year Mungo this year.

The House ghosts drifted around. The Bloody Baron sat next to Draco, who did not look happy. Homesick, probably, Richard guessed. Sir Nick was next to Harry Potter, who now sat with his back towards Richard. _It's nice to get to know your house ghost_, Richard thought, as the Grey Lady chatted with the newest Ravenclaws. With the Sorting and the Headmaster's speech over, he turned his attention to the food in front of him.

As the meal wore down, he looked up at the head table. The teachers were finishing up. Flitwick looked satisfied. Snape looked more dour than usual. Quirrell looked ridiculous with the purple turban on.

After dinner there was the Headmaster's final speech and the school song, and finally the students headed out the doors. Richard caught up with Draco and his 'fellows' to congratulate them on their Sorting, and then went up to Ravenclaw tower and the bed that was waiting for him.

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_beta-ed by Somigliana_

_Author's Note: Jo does not have Quirrell wearing the turban when Harry first meets him. See also "The Harry Potter Lexicon". I doubt if Voldemort would have wasted much time plastering himself on Quirrell's bald spot after the failure of July thirty-first's bank robbery._


	8. Chapter 8 The Harry Potter Report

**A Board, A Broom, and the Harry Potter Report**

It was a rainy Saturday morning, and it was still dark outside. All of the others were still asleep when Richard gleefully rolled out of bed, threw on his Muggle clothes, and dug out his skateboard from where he had stowed it under his bed. Quidditch season hadn't started, so no one else would be up for a while yet. According to the Book of Ravenclaw, only the house-elves could be expected to be awake, fixing breakfast in the kitchens below the Great Hall.

The skateboard had taken most of his earnings from Murtlap harvest. He had carried buckets from one site to another for two weeks, and put up with the crabby harvesters, the constant sea spray, the smells from rotten seaweed, the rat-like Murtlaps and the Murtlap fungus that grew on their backs. That the animals and the fungus had the same name didn't make the job easier.

The skateboard was from a Muggle used-sporting goods store. The wheels were worn, and there were stickers stuck on it that no amount of rubbing - or magic - would get off. He had smuggled it to school in the bottom of his trunk. And what would Mr. Malfoy say? He'd probably agree with Matt's dad, who would say something about broken necks, arms, and heads. Better to keep it at Hogwarts.

Richard was still in the early learning stages, and was just beginning to get the hang of riding. He knew where to find the secret Hufflepuff skate park, and he wanted to show he belonged there. And that took practice.

He carried his skateboard to the highest corridor in the school and proceeded to coast on the castle's dimly lit floors. On the stairs, though, he slid his seat down the banisters, holding his board. Ravenclaw would have lost every one of its points had any teacher or prefect been there to see him.

The people and animals in portraits and tapestries were still asleep. In the hallways the suits of armor were slumped, and many portraits throughout the school were leaning against their frames or camping in the landscapes. Even the poltergeist, Peeves, and the ghosts were missing from the hallways.

He could not remember what wing of the third floor the students had been warned to stay away from, but the whole area stank of something familiar. He stayed in its main corridor and left it as soon as possible.

On the lower levels, he passed through corridors and arched passageways to the outside courtyards. He skimmed through puddles, splashing the water up as high as he could, not minding the flood from the sky, using his wand's light as a torch.

Too soon, he was at the Great Doors. He turned back, rode past the giant hour glasses that held the house points, and skated into the Great Hall, around each of the tables and back out again. He carried his skateboard back upstairs as he retraced his route, and stowed it back under his bed. His roommates were still asleep.

He was the first one down for breakfast and the first one back to bed and sleep.

He slept until one of his roommates shook him awake – he had visitors.

Draco, Crabbe and Goyle were outside the common room, waiting for him, wanting to know what there was to do in the castle on wet and rainy Saturdays.

------------------

"Walnuts," groused Matt. "Here comes the daily Harry Potter report."

The second year Ravenclaws and the Mungos were at their table in the Great Hall, finishing lunch. A certain Slytherin first-year was hurrying toward them.

"I'm gone. Got homework," said Eddie Carmichael.

"I'm going to watch Quidditch practice." Cho stood up.

"Quidditch started already?" Marietta asked.

Cho glared at her as she grabbed her book bag. Marietta left with her.

"Library," Jerome said, leaving his lunch half-eaten.

"Too bad, mate," Matt said and he took off with the rest.

Richard scowled at the lot as they fled, leaving him to deal with Draco by himself.

The eleven-year-old Slytherin didn't notice the exodus, and flung himself onto the bench next to the twelve-year-old Ravenclaw.

"Potter got a broom," he whined. "A new Nimbus Two Thousand."

"Hmm," Richard said, carefully nibbling on a boiled egg. He was already full, but he hoped that if his mouth had food in it, Draco wouldn't expect him to answer.

"If I had my own broom here at school, then I could be on the team. You've seen me fly, you know I could." Draco played with a spoon, rocking it around on the tip of its bowl.

Richard took a sip of pumpkin juice, hoping not to choke on it.

"Stupid Longbottom and his stupid Remembrall. Think I'll make it go away; he'll think he forgot where he put it. Stupid Potter," he grumbled. "He should have been expelled."

"And you with him," Richard retorted. "We saw the whole thing from the hospital wing, during class. It was all very exciting, so you don't have to tell me about it again." Richard took another egg.

Draco looked startled. "What were you doing in the hospital wing? You're not going to tell Father, are you?"

"Mungo Medical training. For Quidditch." Richard took a sip of pumpkin juice. "Why should I tell your dad?"

Draco looked relieved. "Then you won't." And then he glared at him. "Why didn't you help me smuggle my broom here?"

Richard sighed. "Look, we talked about it at your birthday, and then you were in France, and then I was at Murtlap harvest, and then we both had to be back at school. I don't know how to do a Shrinking Charm; that's fifth year stuff. I don't know how to smuggle a broom in." He took another bite of egg.

The younger boy pouted. "But you smuggled a skateboard in."

Richard choked on the egg. Draco gave him some very hard thumps on his back. Richard caught his breath and gave Draco a glare in return. "How did you find out?"

He smirked. "I saw you carrying it in Diagon Alley. I guessed you might have smuggled it here." He leaned back against the table. "What would Father say if he knew you had a skateboard here?" His grey eyes glittered maliciously.

"Your dad would probably ask if he could have a go at it," Richard coolly replied, his own grey eyes glaring back. "Well, I'm sorry I don't have a broom; I'd let you borrow it, you know I would."

Draco scowled. "Whatever broom you had wouldn't be good enough. You're too scared to fly high, so you would've just gotten something like a Hawk One Fifty. This just isn't fair. Potter gets to be the youngest Seeker, and he's just started learning to fly." Draco kicked the bench in frustration. "And I've been flying for years."

The class bell chimed.

"You've got egg all over you, Gitfellow," Draco sneered as he stood up.

"Well, Dray, thanks for letting me know," Richard replied as he brushed off his robes.

The plates were disappearing; the hall was emptying out. The two walked together to the doors, and then went their separate ways.


	9. Chapter 9 Detentions

_beta-ed by Somigliana_

**Detentions**

The rain was falling heavily on a Saturday afternoon at the end of September. Richard put on his yellow Macintosh and boots and stompled out of the Ravenclaw common room and through the castle, earning looks of amusement and derision from the few students who were in the hallways. Most were cozying up in the common rooms or hanging out in the Great Hall.

"Hey, you can use the _Impervius_ Charm, you know," someone yelled at him. "This is a school of wizardry, you know." There was laughter following it, but Richard trudged on to the Great Doors, pulled them open, and then stepped out into the storm.

He enjoyed the feeling of the elements buffeting him, the wetness dripping from his hat. He liked to taste the rain and splash in the mud puddles. Charms just got in the way.

Carefully, he stepped down the wet stairs and down to the walkway and headed across the lawn to the lake. Matt and a few others had gone with the Headmaster sometime earlier in the day to visit with the merpeople for their Mermish language lesson.

Someone was already at its shore, sitting under a large canopy, with a large table next to him. Wards and charms were in place, as the wind didn't stir the stuff on the table, nor the man's straight black hair.

Richard plodded up to the canopy, stood outside its shelter, and then turned and grinned at Professor Snape.

The Professor ignored him. Richard could see he was working on a logic puzzle magazine. The boy said nothing, but noted the piles of robes and the large jar of Gillyweed on the table, and then looked out at the lake. The lake looked like a giant cauldron, set to "simmer" with a light steam rising, but the air was bracingly cold, and the rain dripped noisily from the edge of the canopy.

The Professor remarked, "It's still going to be some time before they come out of the lake." He glanced at the boy. "Rather a showy outfit."

"Thank you, Professor, sir," he replied. "Souvenir from Murtlap harvest. Potions Master Smyth didn't want me to get lost in on the beach."

Professor Snape looked back at the magazine. "How did it happen that you missed your Mermish lesson today?"

Richard peered back at him through the water pouring off the brim of his hat. "Had to get caught up on my homework after my detentions, Professor, sir."

The Professor frowned. "How many detentions have you had this year?"

"Six. All with Professor Quirrell." Richard looked back out at the lake. "I think he's still mad about last year."

"You and your friend Matt did give him quite a time," the professor dryly remarked. "I thought that Mungos were limited to one year of pranking."

"I didn't get detentions for pranking. One was for passing notes in class, another was for talking in class, one was for causing an accident on the stairs, can't remember what the other three were for," the student complained. "I try to be careful in the classroom, but it's like he has eyes in the back of his head." Richard looked back at the castle. "Walnuts. There he is," the boy groaned.

Professor Quirrell was walking down the lawn, holding a large black umbrella over his purple turban. His robes were dry and orderly despite the storm's blasts, indicating a protective charm was in place. He was headed for the canopy, and was just a few yards away.

"I think I'll go find some lacewings or something, Professor, sir," he said with a sidelong glance at the approaching teacher.

Richard stompled off down the path that went by the lake.

"P-p-professor Sn-sn-snape," Professor Quirrell stuttered as he approached the canopy.

"Professor Quirrell," Snape duly replied. "Out for a stroll?"

The teacher gave a wry smile. "Ju-ju-just k-k-keeping an eye on th-the-the l-l-little M-m-merlin. R-r-r-richard a-a-all m-m-m-most d-d-d-did d-d-drown l-l-last y-y-year." The man followed after the boy.

Professor Snape hesitated a moment, then said, "My legs need a bit of a stretch. I'll join you." He got up and accompanied the other teacher.

The two walked in silence behind Richard, who started to feel very uncomfortable about leading the short parade.

A short while later the Headmaster, Matt and the other eight Mermish language students came up out the lake, shivering as they cast Warming Spells. After they reached the canopy, they cast Drying Spells, and then quickly shrugged into their robes. Someone spotted the bright yellow Macintosh, the purple turban and the figures strolling a few hundred yards away. Without much ado, and by mutual consent, they struck out down the path to the threesome, making a staggering line down the shore of the lake.

Matt caught up to Richard. "Where are we going?"

Richard gave Matt a started look, then turned around and saw the crowd behind him.

"_I_ am going back for tea," he huffed, and made a sharp turn into the shrubbery by the path. Matt followed him. Everyone else stopped, and looked at each other. Snape gave Quirrell a sour look, and then turned back to the table, as did Dumbledore and the others. The jar of Gillyweed was packed up, found socks returned to their owners, and the canopy vanished.

Everyone made it back in time for tea. Professor Quirrell gave Richard detention for tracking mud into the castle.

----------

Detentions with Quirrell had been spent writing lines, all starting with "I will not…" But after the visit with Snape at the lake, the detentions changed.

Barely had Richard started writing, "I will not track mud into the school building", when Professor McGonagall interrupted.

"Professor Quirrell, might I have Mr. Goodfellow's detention time?" she asked.

Startled, he complied.

Professor McGonagall put Richard to work Transfiguring first years' failures.

Two days later, when he had another detention ("I will not fall asleep in class"), Professor Sprout happened to need Richard to help her redo the herb garden.

The next detention ("I will not eat like a pig at meal times"), Professor Kettleburn needed someone to help Hagrid round up some Flobberworms.

Then Professor Flitwick needed someone to gather feathers, Professor Vector needed to have the Arithmancy tiles cleaned and inventoried, and Professor Sinistra needed to have the astrolabes polished. Even the caretaker, Filch, had chains that needed oiling.

Could Richard spend his detentions helping them?

Professor Quirrell stopped giving Richard detentions. For a while.


	10. Chapter 10 Halloween Horror

**Halloween Horror**

After slamming the potions cupboard shut and throwing the inventory report on Professor Snape's desk, Richard hurried through the main dungeon corridor to the Great Hall for the Halloween feast and then to the Ravenclaw party afterwards.

"MR. GOODFELLOW!" Professor Quirrell shouted, appearing out of nowhere. It seemed that the professor never stuttered when he was upset at Richard - a sign to the boy that he'd done something to annoy the man again.

"What are you doing down here? There's a troll in the dungeon! Get in here, now! And don't come out again until I get you." He grabbed Richard by the collar of his robe, his bare knuckles grazing the boy's neck. The teacher pushed the small boy through a doorway into a dark room and shut the door firmly. Richard stumbled, knocking into invisible, hard objects until he was sprawled uncomfortably on the floor. He pulled out his wand.

_"Lumos!"_

Richard was in a storeroom, filled with toilet paper and soap, mops and brooms, cleaning potions and powders. He tried the door handle, locked. He pressed his ear against the door and heard nothing. _"Alohomora!"_ The door stayed locked.

A troll in the dungeon. What on earth was one doing there? He took a few packets of toilet paper and made a seat with them and sat on them, thinking of his options, and waiting for Professor Quirrell to return.

Suddenly he smelled something foul, like a dirty bathroom and filthy socks. He heard a shuffling sound and a lot of banging, followed by a girl screaming. Richard leapt to his feet and frantically tried the door again. It seemed sealed shut. The noise was loud, as if it were next door. What was happening to the girl? What if the troll came in here? He wasn't able to leave, but that didn't mean it couldn't enter. He hid in the corner behind the door, crouched down, and waited, wand at the ready, mentally reviewing his spells and hoping that the girl had escaped.

The noise was horrifying, and it seemed to last a long time. There was shouting, roaring, the sounds of shattering and breaking, a loud thud, and then suddenly it was over. He pressed his ear against the door again and heard voices. He tried the door again and pounded his fist against it.

Still nothing.

There was a gap at the bottom. He tried sliding a paper towel under the door, but there seemed to be something in the way. He pounded again, hoping that someone would hear him.

Suddenly the door flew open and there was Professor McGonagall.

"Good heavens, child! What on earth are you doing there?"

Professor Quirrell appeared suddenly in the hallway behind her, peering over her shoulder.

"I was shoved in here. By Professor Quirrell." Richard stared at him. "He said that there was a troll in the dungeon."

"There is, or rather, there was. It was a good thing he got you to safety. You might have been killed!" Professor McGonagall said. "Good work, Quirenius."

Quirenius - what a stupid name, Richard thought, as he stumbled out of the closet. The teachers were so close he could smell them. McGonagall smelled like pumpkin juice, lavender water, and roast chicken, but Quirrell smelled like garlic, the ubiquitous sandalwood-scented deodorant that most wizards used, and something else, something familiar that reminded him of St. Mungo's Hospital. Richard gasped, and stepped back away from both of them. McGonagall grabbed his arm and helped to steady him. "Tell Professor Quirrell, 'Thank you,' then off you go to your common room," she kindly ordered him.

Richard stammered out a lie.

The other professor smiled and nodded, but said nothing as he shot a look at Richard. Richard turned and fled to the Ravenclaw tower.

The man had smelled like a cleaned-up dead body.

--------

The nightmares started that night.

In his dream, Quirrell's purple turban unrolled itself from the teacher's head. The teacher dissolved into nothingness, while the turban grew larger and snaked over to where Richard was standing, stuck amid rolls of toilet paper and bottles of cleaners. He tried to scream, but he couldn't; the turban was wrapping itself around his mouth. He tried to pull it off, but it tied his hands. It wrapped around his knees, causing him to fall over,

And suddenly Richard was awake, tangled in his own blankets, gasping for air.

It was still dark. His roommates were still sleeping.

Richard stared at the ceiling for a while, and then pushed himself out of his bed and went to the loo. He didn't want to go back to bed, but a look at the stars out the window and to the wind-up clock on the shelf, and he knew it was too early to leave the room. What if Professor Quirrell was outside? He paced to the loo and back, worrying and afraid of awaking his roommates.

Finally, he decided to get out the cloak Mr. Malfoy had given him at the start of term. He opened his trunk and dug it out. Mr. Malfoy had it made at the same time as his and Draco's, and it was of the same fabric. Like Draco's, Mr. Malfoy had also put a warming spell on it, making it seem alive. It no longer smelled of Malfoy manor, but the feel of the fabric and its warmth still comforted him. It was as if Mr. Malfoy were somehow in the room. Shivering, he wrapped himself in the cloak, pulled the blue curtains of his bed shut, and lay huddled at the foot of the bed, where he would be less easily found if the professor somehow entered the room and tore the curtains open. Under the bedcovers, he whispered, _"Lumos!"_ and fitfully fell asleep, exhausted with fear, with a fistful of cloak in one hand, and his wand still lit in the other.


	11. Chapter 11 Tales of the Turban

**Tales of the Turban**

Richard woke in the early morning, went down into the common room, paced a bit, and then went upstairs to Augustus Pye's dorm room.

"Gus," he whispered, "wake up."

The older student opened his eyes and blinked at him. "Wassup?" he slurred sleepily.

"I need to talk. Can we do it in the Quiet room?"

Gus nodded and pushed his feet out of bed, dumped a bathrobe over his nightshirt, and, after finding his carpet slippers, shuffled out of the room with Richard anxiously circling him. Down the stairs they went, through the empty Ravenclaw common room and into the adjoining Quiet room.

The small library-like room was still; the anti-noise charms were in place. A cat wandered in. Gus pushed it out and put a ward on the door opening to keep it out. "You never know who's doing an Animagus project for the N.E..," he grumbled.

"Thanks," Richard mumbled.

Gus stared at him balefully and flopped in a soft easy chair. Richard pulled an ottoman closer to him to sit on, and was only inches away from Gus when he whispered, "It's Quirrell."

Gus's attitude changed instantly; he was alert and wary. "What about him?"

"He stinks. Like the morgue at St. Mungo's. Like he's dead or something," he said quietly.

Gus relaxed a bit. "Oh."

"Oh? What, did you know already?" Richard was shocked and angry.

"Yeah. Do you want some peppermint oil to block the smell? It really helps," Gus replied.

"Why would I want that? Why would he smell dead?"

"Well, he's Muggle-born, and the Muggles have some pretty weird diseases, so he might have one of those…"

"We had him last year for Astronomy! He was our teacher last year and he didn't reek then!"

"He was also outside the whole time. Yeah, I know what you're saying, though. It's probably gotten bad lately. Remember how Cho and Marietta and those girls in Slytherin had crushes on him last year? Now they joke about how 'stinky' he is. And watch Snape at mealtime. They used to sit next to each other, now Snape's practically sitting in a window." Gus rubbed his nose. "The garlic sure doesn't help any. I wonder if he's wearing it or eating it. Probably both. And it sure wouldn't hurt if he washed that rag of a turban sometime." Gus threw his head back and looked up at the ceiling, sighed, and then looked at Richard.

"Sorry it disturbed you so much. I'm sure Dumbledore has said something about personal hygiene, but if it's a disease, then Quirrell needs to get treatment, and maybe he is; maybe garlic is part of the cure. I don't know. It's not our problem. I just slip some peppermint oil on, and then I can sit in the class and read the book. He's not a very good DADA teacher, you know." Gus shrugged.

Richard stared at him.

"That's right, I forgot, he threw you in a closet last night. Probably saved your life."

Richard looked over at the doorway. The cat was outside the wards, staring in. No one was in the main common room.

"Yeah, it gave me a nightmare," he slowly replied.

Gus nodded. "Being around a troll can do that. The best way to stop having a nightmare is to tell someone about it. Wait." He held up a hand. "I just had another thought; Quirrell graduated from Beauxbatons. I wonder if that smell is some sort of French perfume gone bad." He snorted. "Or maybe it's supposed to smell that way." He grinned at Richard.

He felt sick and worn out.

The older boy smiled kindly at him. "Relax, Richard. It's just a smell. It's not going to kill you. Now, do you want to tell me your nightmare, or do you just want to go back to bed?"

Richard suddenly felt very tired. "Back to bed," he mumbled. "Sorry."

"It's okay, Richard, that's what we Healers are for." He grinned. He clapped the small boy on the back as they walked through the common room.

"Wait," Richard asked, not wanting Gus to leave. "How did you know Quirrell's Muggle-born?"

"He keeps saying 'zombie' instead of 'Inferius'."

"Maybe that's French? Since he's from Beauxbatons?"

Gus shrugged. "Maybe. I don't know French, but it's sure annoying."

Back in his room, Richard couldn't relax. He picked up the cloak Mr. Malfoy had given him, and then slipped back to the Quiet room. The cat came back into the room; he ignored it. He moved the room's small sofa so it wasn't facing the doorway, then, huddled in the warm cloak, he curled up on its soft seat. The cat climbed up the back of the sofa, walked on him, and then settled itself at his feet.

Maybe a cat is just a cat; maybe a nightmare is just a nightmare, he thought. The thought gave him no hope. Exhausted and cramped, he dozed off.

-------

Quirrell's "magical" turban was a topic of conversation after the next Quidditch match. The Mungo Medical Team were reviewing the responses they had to make during the game, writing their reports as they talked. The team was comprised of the Mungos and a few sixth and seventh year students starting their medical training for St. Mungo's Hospital.

"Couldn't believe it," Gus said. "All these years of working the stands, and here Snape catches on fire – a blue flame, someone said, so it wouldn't have done much damage. He's not very popular, but really, attacking a teacher during a match? And then Quirrell gets knocked down two sets of rows. Neither claimed to be hurt, of course, but that stupid turban stayed on Quirrell's head. He must have a bald spot the size of Wales that he's trying to hide. That is one strong Sticking Spell he's using."

"Maybe it's a hair-growing spell gone bad," joked Tammy Green, a Hufflepuff.

"Or, hey, maybe he got a tattoo on his scalp while he was on holiday, and now he's trying to hide it," a Gryffindor added.

"Wonder what it would look like," Gus mused.

"If he has one, I don't think it would look very pretty," Tammy replied.

The team members went on to other post-match topics: injuries from when a Hufflepuff bench fell over ("Just some scrapes and bruising"), the vomiting in the Slytherin area ("Think it was some bad sweets"), how many Ravenclaws were trying to test the protective wards around the stands ("One day the wards won't be there, and it's going to be a long, nasty drop to the ground"), and the tally of the teams' injuries ("Surprised Potter didn't knock his teeth out with that Snitch"). Gryffindor Cormac McLaggen managed to step on his own hand, breaking a knuckle; Hufflepuff Justin Finch-Fletchley got his eye poked with a wand; someone hexed Slytherin Jeannie Talbot with a Leg-Locker Curse, causing her to fall over onto two other students; and a Hufflepuff alumnus had smuggled in an air horn, causing temporary deafness in the crowd members next to him when he used it. (It ended up jinxed to his head.)

The jobs were finished. The team members turned in their reports and medical uniforms to Madam Pomfrey, and then went down for dinner as a group, separating at the door to eat at their own tables.

------

Richard had another nightmare. In it, the purple turban grew and grew, until it swallowed Quirrell. Richard tried to run, but he was in a closed-off hallway, and couldn't get away. The turban continued to grow until it filled his whole sight. It pushed him against the wall, covering his whole body, and then all was dark.

The boy woke up, petrified with fear, and could not move until his roommates started to stir in the early morning. Hearing them moving about and talking, he finally relaxed and fell into a dreamless sleep.

At the end of the day he got out the cloak and hid it under his pillow. He hoped he wouldn't have another nightmare, but he did.


	12. Chapter 12 Nightmares and Potions

**Nightmares and Potions**

The following Saturday morning, Richard went skateboarding through the school. As always, the hallways were darkened and everyone was still asleep. Skateboarding relaxed him, and he was proud to have done well (for a beginner) at the Hufflepuffs' secret skate park. He was looking forward to spending the day there as he sped past the Charms classroom in the third floor corridor.

The corridor stank, as it always did in the early morning, and Richard was thinking only of going to the second floor, when...

"MR. GOODFELLOW! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" Professor Quirrell suddenly appeared, grabbing him by his robes.

Richard fell off his skateboard; it continued down the hallway by itself. He landed on his back, and found himself staring up at the angry man who was standing over him, upside down in the boy's view.

Professor Quirrell hissed, "Are you trying to break your neck? Are you trying to get yourself killed? One week of detention. Now get back to bed. And I don't want to ever see that infernal Muggle thing here at Hogwarts again."

Shaking, Richard picked himself up off the floor and scampered after his skateboard. Professor Quirrell stood still, glaring at him. Richard shot him a look of fright and ran back to the Ravenclaw common room.

He paced around inside the room, shaking. He needed help. "Chaucer, Chaucer," he begged.

One of the Hogwarts house-elves suddenly appeared, wiping his hands on a small piece of cloth. He had been working on breakfast, and had a look of concern on his face.

"Something bad has happened?" the house-elf asked.

"Please, take the skateboard before Professor Quirrell takes it from me," he begged.

"Hide it until the holidays?" Chaucer asked.

Richard nodded. "Please." The presence of the house-elf calmed him, and he felt very tired. The skateboard would be safe.

"Done. Call Chaucer again when Richard Goodfellow is ready," the house-elf replied, reaching for the board. It was huge and ungainly in the small creature's arms, but he managed and disappeared.

Richard went to his room and found his cloak. He carried it back through the common room and into the adjoining Quiet room. He wrapped himself in the cloak, pushed four cats off of the room's small sofa, and curled up on its seat. After some squirming, he fell into a fitful slumber.

-----

Professor Sprout immediately claimed Richard's week of detentions: It was spent collecting and preparing potion ingredients from the greenhouses and the Forbidden Forest, and every session was followed by some time at the skate park.

She knew about the park, of course. She wasn't happy about Professor Quirrell's actions, but what was Richard thinking, using Hogwarts for his own personal skate park?

The others at the skate park offered to loan him their boards, but riding someone else's board was like riding someone else's broom – it wasn't the same as your own. You didn't know its quirks or its sweet spots, and you were always afraid you were going to crash it.

The good thing about the week was that after he was done with his regular potions cupboard inventory, the detention work, the skating, and his homework, he fell asleep immediately, too exhausted to dream.

Too soon the week ended.

-----

He forced himself to stay awake. The nightmares could not find him if he was awake.

He often left the common room late at night, roaming the hallways, avoiding the teachers and Mr. Filch on their patrols. Once in a while Mrs. Norris found him, but she simply blinked and walked away, ignoring his out-reached hands, his pleas for her to keep him company. He visited the kitchen where the house-elves offered him food and let him doze by the fireplace for half an hour, but then they would awaken him and suggest that he go back to his own bed. He would leave the warmth of the kitchen and wander out into the courtyards to freeze in the night air: The cold was better than the fear that gripped him in his sleep.

Only after his roommates awoke in the early morning did he allow himself to lie down on his bed and close his eyes for a brief, terrifying hour.

-----

Potions class was not going well.

_Read the directions; set out ingredients.  
Read the directions; measure the ingredients.  
Read the directions; apply the ingredients._

The Ravenclaw Potions Mantra was not working. Or rather, Richard wasn't following it. He couldn't follow it: His concentration was broken, and the room kept jerking around as he fought to stay awake. He was on the second step, but he knew his project for the day was as good as ruined. He pushed everything to the side and then put his head down on the table. He felt sick.

Professor Snape was patrolling the classroom, and stopped by Richard. "Mr. Goodfellow," he said sternly, "please see me after class."

Richard nodded, pillowed his head with his arms, and slept.

-----

"Mr. Goodfellow. Mr. Goodfellow."

Richard blinked his eyes open. His head was still on the table. His neck was stiff and his body ached. The classroom was almost empty. Matt was putting away Richard's potions ingredients and shot him a sympathetic look. Richard slowly sat up and looked toward the voice.

Professor Snape was at his desk, frowning at him. "Up here, please," he said as he Summoned a stool over by his chair.

Richard stiffly got up and stumbled up to the professor. The professor motioned for him to sit. The boy complied, still blinking sleepily.

"Mr. Goodfellow, are you well?"

Richard had to think about the question. He rubbed his neck as he thought about the answer.

"Mr. Goodfellow, look at me," the professor ordered.

Richard tried to focus his eyes on the teacher.

There was a pause as Professor Snape studied him, and then he reached for a piece of parchment and wrote. Matt had put everything away and had taken care of Richard's books and book bag. He was now sitting at the table, watching and waiting. Richard fought to stay awake.

"Take this to Madam Pomfrey. You will not be attending any classes for the rest of the day, nor will you be doing your inventory this evening." He handed Richard the parchment. "You are dismissed."

"Yes, Professor, sir," he mumbled.

Matt wordlessly walked to the Hospital wing with Richard, turned him over to Madam Pomfrey and then returned to his classes.

The school nurse had Richard sit in a chair while she read the note. Silently, she got out two bottles of potions and a glass, measuring and mixing a drink.

"Over here, Richard," she said not unkindly, motioning to one of the softer beds. She lowered it with a charm and put a screen around it. "You need to sleep."

Richard stumbled over to the bed and laid himself on it, and then had to sit up for the medicine.

She helped to hold the glass as he drank. He knew what it was: It was Draught of Dreamless Sleep, and he knew the ingredients well, having watched it made countless times at St. Mungo's, but there was something else he tasted in it, something familiar...

The "something" reminded him of the sea, and he remembered the sound of waves crashing, and the smell of kelp and salt air, the voices of sea birds and the harsh voices of witches and wizards calling to each other. He was eight years old again. He saw Mr. Malfoy walking with him - a very tall Mr. Malfoy – and their colourful kites flying in the grey sky. Richard was running with Matt and Cedric Diggory, playing tag on the sand and threatening girls with jellyfish.

He knew now what it was he tasted: It was Murtlap. He felt its magical properties flowing through his body like a small flat wave on the strand as it roiled the gravel at its far edges. The Murtlap washed the nerve endings in his body, teased apart and carried away something that didn't belong there. The memory of the sound of the sea grew, and as if carried out on the tide, his consciousness drifted away into a dreamless, restful sleep.

-----

Later that night after dinner, the twelve-year old boy reluctantly went to sleep in his bed, the cloak spread over the counterpane.

He dreamt that the teachers were playing Quidditch on flying skateboards, using owls as Bludgers. The owls flew away. Professor Snape and Richard flapped their arms and they flew too. Quirrell was in the dream, wearing his turban, but it looked like a huge peppermint candy coloured with red and white stripes, and when it fell off and rolled away like a wheel of cheese, the partly bald-headed man ran after it. When Richard woke up at dawn he was grinning.

It had been a very ridiculous dream.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_**Author's Notes**__: beta-ed by Somigliana. Please be aware that I first published this years ago at Sychophant Hex, and since then, JRK has announced that Quirrell was the Muggle Studies teacher before he took on the Defense Against the Dark Arts class. _


	13. Chapter 13 Dear Mr Malfoy

**Dear Mr. Malfoy**

_Dear Mr. Malfoy,_

How are you? I am fine.

The Leonid meteor shower was washed out by moonlight, but the Geminid looks like it will be fantastic. Gus talked to Professor Sinistra, and we are going to be able to camp out on the Astronomy Tower to watch them at their peak.

Yours truly,  
Richard

-----------------------------

_Dear Mr. Malfoy,_

We didn't get to see the Geminid because it was snowing last night. We wanted to stay on the tower anyway, but Professor Sinistra sent us back to our dorms.

Matt and I will be coming back on the Hogwarts Express for the holidays. See you soon!

Yours truly,  
Richard

P.S. I was bitten by a Doxy yesterday. The eggs were hatching as I was unloading them into the Potions cupboard.

---------------------

The day was snowy, and students were sliding and slipping on the slippery stuff. Some students were throwing snow at each other while others threw mild hexes in return. A couple of girls were using their wands to charm piles of snow into snow fairies, and a few others were charming colours into the icicles. Professor Quirrell was outside, watching the students in the snow.

Fred and George Weasley were discussing possible ways to knock Quirrell's turban off with a snowball.

"Do it," a nearby voice said quietly.

They turned and saw a second-year Ravenclaw give them a grim smile.

"Do it," Richard repeated, "and there's a Galleon for the two of you." He held up the coin.

"Wow, a commission!" one of the twins exclaimed.

"What are we waiting for? There's money to be made," the other one said.

Grinning, the two went to work, charming snowballs that bounced on the turban. Professor McGonagall happened by and rescued the unfortunate professor. Richard disappeared.

----------------------

_Dear Mr. Malfoy,_

How are you? I had a cold, but now I'm better. Ravenclaw played Hufflepuff. It was awful. Today Professor Binns talked about the White Horse at Uffington. Remember when we went to it? It's almost dinnertime. Good-bye for now.

Yours truly,  
Richard

P.S. We are leaving tomorrow. Hope to see you soon!

-----------------------

"I have to get these books back to the library NOW," Richard argued as the two hurried down the empty corridor.

"And it wouldn't kill you if I stopped at a bathroom and got this out of my teeth," Matt complained. "I need a mirror - it feels the size of a walnut."

"Fine, fine," Richard grumbled. "Just find a mirror already."

"Why didn't _you_ take the books back earlier," Matt retorted. "Wait, I think I saw something." He stopped short.

Richard had to stop and turn around to follow him into a classroom. There was a large mirror in it, a rather odd place for a mirror to be, let alone one that size.

It must be a storage room, Richard thought, looking at the piled up desks and the dusty windows.

Matt rushed to the mirror and started using it to dig into his mouth with his finger, trying to get at something stuck in his front teeth.

Impatient and bored, Richard looked into the mirror, then, startled, stared into it. He didn't see Matt picking his teeth! Richard gazed with astonishment and delight as he watched events unfold in its glass.

"Hey, Matt! It's a magical mirror. It tells the future! See, there's you and me getting off the Hogwarts Express, and there's my mum and Mr. Malfoy and your mum and dad!" Richard looked up at the frame. There was writing on the top, starting with a strange word, _Erised_. It meant nothing to him.

"Got it!" Matt said, running his tongue over his teeth. Richard grabbed Matt's sleeve and pulled him out of the room.

The books were unceremoniously dropped off at the library, and the two hurried on their way. They made one more stop to collect Richard's skateboard from Chaucer, the house-elf, and then caught the train for the holidays.

------------------------------------

_Dear Mr. Malfoy,_

I am back at Hogwarts. It was good to be with you again. I had a nice holiday. The Manor looked very nice, and it was fun going out on the barrows. Draco said he had a good time. I hope Mrs. Malfoy is over her headache.

Madam Pomfrey will be teaching us in our Saturday lessons about how Squibs are important during times of medical emergency. Matt is going to ask the Headmaster if we can go visit the merpeople Sunday afternoon, even though the lake is still frozen.

Yours truly,  
Richard

----------------------------------

"Special delivery, Professor, sir, from St. Mungo's." Richard put the package down on Professor Snape's desk.

The professor raised an eyebrow, but didn't take the package.

"What is it, and whom is it from?" he asked.

"Flavored Murtlaps, from Potions Master Smyth," he replied, waiting for the teacher's response.

Snape put down the book he'd been reading and reached gingerly for the package, and then opened it carefully. He looked at the jars and read their labels out loud.

"Peppermint. Cinnamon. Nutmeg." The professor curled his lip. "Does Smyth have so much time that she can try such nonsense?"

"Well, she thinks that people will take more of it if it didn't taste so bad."

The professor fixed a look of disdain on the student. "Has she tried her own medicine? Is there no one at St. Mungo's who would test it?"

Richard grinned back. "She was hoping for an impartial opinion. And maybe a N.E.W.T. student who would test them to see if the magic in them is increased or otherwise affected."

Professor Snape snorted. "The N.E.W.T.s level students are busy with their own projects. Take them to Madam Pomfrey; maybe she has some use for them."

"What shall I tell the Potions Master?"

Snape frowned. "I will take care of that," he answered. "You are dismissed."

Richard took one of the bottles and stuffed it into his junk-filled book bag. "Are you sure you don't want one for your collection, Professor, sir?" He nodded to the shelves full of glass jars and their pickled contents.

Snape turned and looked at the shelves. "I suppose the peppermint one could go with the rest of the Murtlap," he said, meaning both the animal and the fungus. "If only as an example of what one can do with too much time and imagination."

Later that day, Richard delivered the jar of cinnamon flavoured Murtlap to Madam Pomfrey, but couldn't find the nutmeg one in his book bag. Rather than dump out all of his stuff and look for it, he decided to give her the other jar when he found it.

----------------------------

_Dear Mr. Malfoy,_

How are you? I am fine. We had a very short Quidditch match today, Hufflepuff vs. Gryffindor. It lasted only five minutes, but there was a fight in the Gryffindor stands and some Mungos had to go clean up after it. I was in the Ravenclaw area, so I didn't have to go, and best of all, no paperwork!

Yours truly,  
Richard

P.S. Professor Snape is going to show me how to do a Freezing Charm on Ashwinder eggs. Maybe it'll work on Doxy eggs too.

-----------------------------------

_Dear Mr. Malfoy,_

How are you? I am fine. Not much is going on. Someone in Hufflepuff created a spell that makes a cat look like a Kneazle. All the cats in Ravenclaw looked like they were Kneazles for a day and they weren't very happy about it. Other than that, nothing much is going on. Slytherin played Hufflepuff. I think Draco told you all about that. Professor Snape says hello. I'm in the Potions classroom, as I just finished inventory. Well, I'm going to go to dinner.

Yours truly,  
Richard

-----------------------

"L-l-l-look at h-h-h-him, w-w-with th-th-th-that ro-ro-rotten-ten tur-turbin," Richard said mockingly to Marietta as they walked across the courtyard on their way to their next class. Professor Quirrell stood at the other side, smiling and nodding to students as they walked by.

"You shouldn't do that," a loud voice said behind them.

Richard stopped and turned to face Ron Weasley and Harry Potter, who were blocking their way. Marietta glanced at the boys and continued on to class.

"Do what? Listen in on others conversations?" he retorted.

"Make fun of Professor Quirrell. He can't help it if he stutters," Ron said piously.

Richard glowered at Ron. "I've heard him not stuttering plenty of times. I think it's a big act."

"Why would he put on a 'big act'? He's a teacher, and he deserves your respect. He wouldn't stutter if he couldn't help it," Ron replied.

"Wh-wh-wh-why don-don-don't you ke-ke-keep out-out of-of th-this," Richard returned.

"Why don't you quit being a prat," Ron snapped back. Potter was pulling on Ron's robe, trying to lead the annoyed redhead to their class, and Ron reluctantly followed, glaring at Richard as he left.

Richard was still seething when he turned and almost ran into Draco.

"Well done, my good Gitfellow!" The younger boy smirked.

Richard glared at him and pushed by him and his two tag-a-longs, and then fled to his next class, making sure to stay as far away from the professor as possible.

--------------------------------------------------------

_**Author's Notes**__: beta-ed by Somigliana_


	14. Chapter 14 Draco and the Dragon

**Draco and the Dragon**

One fine spring day, Richard was in the library, proof-reading his Arthimancy homework when Draco slid into the chair next to him.

"The gamekeeper has a dragon's egg," he whispered smugly.

"A what?" Richard said absentmindedly, scratching his ear with his quill.

"A dragon's egg. I heard Potter and Weasley talking about it."

"That's illegal," Richard mumbled.

"That's right." Draco smirked. "Think it'll hatch?"

"Maybe. Maybe not." Richard frowned over his parchment.

Richard was lost in the assignment and barely noticed when Draco slipped away.

----------------------

While passing in a corridor between classes, Draco caught Richard's sleeve. "How big do you think the egg would be?"

"Egg?"

"The dragon egg."

"I don't know. Probably the same as the ones we saw on our field trips. As big as your book." He pointed to the one Draco was holding.

The boy looked at the book in awe.

---------------------

Richard was finishing dinner in the Great Hall. Draco slid onto the bench beside him.

"How long do you think it will be before it hatches? The dragon egg," Draco asked eagerly.

"I think five weeks, maybe six: I don't know. Ask Cedric Diggory. His dad knows dragons. Or one of the Weasleys -- their brother works with them."

"You go ask, then tell me!" the eleven-year-old ordered, his grey eyes shining.

---------------------

Richard was outside the castle that evening with Matt and some other Ravenclaws, watching birds and identifying them for their Care of Magical Creatures homework. Draco hovered hesitatingly outside the group.

Richard sighed and walked over to him. Speaking lowly, he told Draco, "I asked Professor Kettleburn, and he said it depends upon the species. Four to seven weeks."

Draco nodded and grinned, and then ran back to the castle.

-----------------------

A few weeks later, during morning break, Richard was sitting in his favourite window in the Ravenclaw Rehearsal room, reviewing his History notes and trying to remember where Ballindaloch Castle was when the door flew open and Draco burst in.

Draco looked hurriedly around the empty room and then slammed the door shut. "Hagridhasadragon!"

Richard peered back, puzzled. "Huh?"

Draco glared at him and took a deep breath, willing himself to speak slower. "Hagrid has a dragon. There's a dragon. In Hagrid's hut."

"That hut is too small for a dragon."

"It just hatched."

"What?"

"It just hatched! _It was BRILLIANT!_ I saw through the window! Hagrid has a baby dragon _in his hut!_ We could get it for my dad. It's just a baby." The eleven-year-old boy exclaimed hurriedly.

The twelve-year-old boy frowned thoughtfully. "I think possession of a dragon is illegal. And the gamekeeper lives in a wooden hut. Why would he have a dragon?" Richard put the book on a nearby shelf, and then climbed out of the window and sat on the floor beneath it, where he could lean back while he watched Draco pace back and forth.

Draco was very excited. "That oaf is always doing stupid things, collecting stupid animals, even when my father went to school here he was doing it. I don't know how he got one, but_ I saw it. _What if it were an Hungarian Horntail! My father would love it!"

"Well, if it were a Welsh Green, we could give it to my mum, or if it were a Hebridean Black, maybe Professor McGonagall could keep it in Gryffindor Tower. And Flitwick collects likes to collect Chinese Fireballs; you should see his office. But it's still illegal, and dangerous. He lives in a wooden hut. Where would your dad keep it? In a barn? What would your mother say? How do you know Hagrid has one?"

"I just told you, I saw it. I followed Potter…"

Richard snorted.

"…And watched through the window. I ran off before they could see me."

"I'm sure they saw you," Richard replied grimly. Draco didn't have the slightest idea of subtlety.

"Anyway, there it is. Do you want to see it?" He stopped pacing and waited.

Richard gave an exasperated sigh. "Sure, you and I will go up and knock on his door. 'Excuse me, Mr. Gamekeeper, but may we please see your highly illegal and extremely dangerous baby dragon? We promise not to tell more that twenty people, the Ministry of Magic, and at least one school governor. Actually, hand him over to us right now, and we promise to only tell the governor.'" He smirked at Draco.

The eleven-year old boy looked relieved. "That's exactly what you'll do. We can do it tonight!"

Richard shook his head. "Can't. Got detention."

Draco frowned. "Not Quirrell, again."

Richard nodded.

"Can't you stay out of trouble in his class?" he whined.

"I wasn't in class. Cormac McLaggen spilled his books all over the Charms corridor and I was Summoning them when Quirrell saw me using magic and gave me detention. Any other teacher probably would have taken points, Flitwick would have given points, and Filch would have made some snide remarks, but it was Quirrell."

Draco snorted. "That's what you get for being a Mungo and helping idiots. When will you be done with detention?"

"Probably after I write, 'I will not use magic in the school corridors' one thousand times. Do you know how many quills that takes?"

"Hope I never find out," Draco sneered.

"Anyway, it'll probably be really dark when I'm done. And I don't fancy taking strolls across the school lawn at night."

"Is it a full moon tonight?" Draco asked, peering out the window.

"Don't know and it doesn't matter. There's other stuff in the Forbidden Forest, and I doubt if they stay in there all night. It's dinnertime, we've got to go."

Draco glared at him. "Well, a lot of help _you_ are, Gitfellow."

"Anytime, Dray," Richard replied as he got up off the floor.

Draco slammed the door on his way out.

--------------------------

A couple of weeks later, Richard was in the Potions classroom doing his daily inventory of the Potions cupboard. Draco was sitting on a table behind him in the darkened classroom, fingering a letter he'd gotten out of a book he took from Ron Weasley. The letter told when Charlie Weasley's friends were coming to secretly collect the baby dragon.

"Look, isn't there anyway you can skip out of detention tonight? Potter's going to be taking the dragon away," he whined. "A real live Norwegian Ridgeback! Don't you want to see it?"

"You've told me that ten times already," Richard answered, exasperated. "If I could get out of it, don't you think I would have? I know what it's going to be: 'I will not throw ink-bottles', one thousand times. This teacher is going to kill me with all these stupid detentions. I wasn't throwing ink-bottles! I didn't throw any ink-bottle! I didn't even touch it! Anyone else in that classroom could have made it fly, and I'm the one who gets the blame! Would you mind helping me out here? Just take notes, please? If I'm late, it'll probably be another thousand."

"Course not," Draco coolly replied. "You need the hand exercise. They're coming at midnight. You should be done by then."

"At midnight, the Professor is patrolling the corridors. Looks like we need another four jars of beetle eyes. Where did they all go?" he wondered aloud as he made his notes. "Besides, didn't a Norwegian Ridgeback kill your uncle? You saw what it did to Weasley's hand."

"Snape wouldn't be at the Astronomy Tower then, would he, if he's in the corridors." Draco smirked. "Forget Weasley. And I don't know if a Ridgeback killed my uncle or if it was some other dragon. He died before I was born. And that's how my father inherited the money, and that's how he paid for you, so it was a good thing, then, or who knows what would have happened to either of us. Maybe that's why my parents named me Draco, in honour of the dragon that made them rich."

Richard peered into a barrel of pickled slugs. "Your father probably would be in the World Cup, playing Beater, you'd probably have a different mother, and you'd be going to school at Durmstrang. Maybe you would have been 'Draco' anyway. I still would have been born at Castlerigg, but I would have had someone else be my benefactor, I'd have a different last name, but I'd still be here at Hogwarts, and I'd still have detention with Quirrell in that stinking office. Two more bags of nettles."

"It'll be worth it to see the dragon! Can't you come after detention?"

"Looks like someone's been in the cinnamon sticks again. Why doesn't he just ward this cupboard?" Richard frowned, counting the contents of the box. "After my detentions, Quirrell escorts me to the Ravenclaw mirror, and makes sure I get into the common room. Between him and the Professor, Filch, Peeves, the tell-tale Bloody Baron, and the fact that the stairs between floors five and six are gone at eleven p.m., what are my chances of getting over to the Astronomy Tower?" He went back to talking to himself, "Need another four jars of slugs, five more pounds of Boomslang skin, the Doxy eggs need to be replaced – there's a stink – and… "

Draco gave a long sigh. "Gitfellow, Gitfellow, where is your sense of adventure?"

"Tucked up in bed. Dray, you're sitting on my extra parchment."

Draco stood up and let Richard retrieve the parchment.

"You'll be missing out. When will we ever see a Norwegian Ridgeback up close?"

"One of these days, Potter's going to get you for all this spying on him."

"Blast Potter."

"Well said. That's probably what the dragon will do to him, and you'll be rid of him." Richard gave a final count to the bottles on the bottom shelf and shut the cupboard.

"Why don't you have Crabbe or Goyle go with you?"

"Because they don't understand how important this is, and you do!" Draco pointed out.

"I'm flattered, but I still just can't, as much as I want to," Richard replied, making a final note and placing it on the teacher's desk.

"Well, can you at least help me with my History now?" Draco whined, pulling out the assignment from his book bag.

"Sure." Richard sighed, glancing at the hourglass. "Hand it over." The two boys sat down at a table and went over the younger boy's essay, and then it was time for Richard to go to Quirrell's office.

--------------------

The teacher sat doing paperwork. Behind him was a large mirror, reflecting the back of the turban. The reflection of the turban seemed to stare down at the boy as he silently squirmed in boredom as he wrote the same line one thousand times: "I will not throw inkbottles". When it was over, the teacher silently walked the student to the Ravenclaw tower, where a two-way mirror covered its entrance. Richard gave the password ("Charles Dodgson") and went through the mirror.

Richard crouched on the other side of the mirror, watched Quirrell leave, and waited a few more minutes, in case the teacher returned. It annoyed him that Quirrell now knew the new password, and he wondered if the teacher snuck into the common room after dark, and then dismissed the thought as foolishness. He went to his room where everyone else was asleep. He ate the dinner roll he had saved for this time, and went back down to the common room for a few more minutes. It was now eleven fifteen. He decided to make a try to see the dragon. After all, it was still a baby, and he'd missed all his other chances of going to Hagrid's hut.

He slipped back out the mirror, and made his way over to the missing stairs. He was sure there was a short-cut, but where? A ghostly shimmer nearby caught his eye, and Richard felt a rush of relief; the Grey Lady would know how to get around the stairs!

A short while later, Richard carefully made his way past the third floor corridor, which had no odour this time. He was puzzled by it, but didn't stop to wonder. He almost made it to the tower door when he heard Draco and McGonagall's voices. Draco had been caught! Richard stopped, saw Mrs. Norris pussyfooting down the hallway, and knew that his chances of seeing the dragon were next to nil. He waited a while longer, but nothing else happened, so he went back to the Ravenclaw tower and back to bed.

------------

Breakfast brought the owls, and Draco's mother's daily package. Richard noticed that Draco look peaked and annoyed, and pushed the package aside without opening it. Then Draco scowled at him.

Richard took a breath and finished his cereal, drank down the last of his pumpkin juice and grabbed a hard-boiled egg. He excused himself from the Ravenclaw table and went over to the Slytherin table. Crabbe made way for him to sit next to Draco. Draco glared down at his plate, moving the bacon around in a circle.

"Blast Potter."

Richard glanced over to the Gryffindor Table and saw that Potter and his mates were leaving the Great Hall.

"You seem to be in one piece. So do they."

"The dragon's gone. You can tell by the big oaf, sitting there bawling." He glared at Hagrid, who looked sorrowful at the High Table. "I didn't even get to see it. A Norwegian Ridgeback. Now I'll never see one up close. Got caught before I could see it," he said sulkily.

"Yeah, I know. Sorry about that. I did make it down there, but I was at the first floor landing when I heard you and McGonagall, so I didn't get to see it either. Sorry," he repeated.

"Yeah." Draco replied listlessly. "Now it's probably on its way to Romania, I'll bet. And I've got a stupid detention. What am I going to tell Father?" Draco looked at Richard for help.

"I don't tell him when I have detention, and I'm sure not going to waste any ink telling him about yours. Any idea what it'll be about?"

Draco shrugged. "Probably lines, like yours."

Richard remarked. "Then let me guess: You'll write, 'I will not delve after dragons,' one thousand times. It'll be dull, but you'll get through it. Any idea when?"

"I don't know." He scowled. "Maybe she'll forget it."

"She won't forget!" Richard said cheerfully. And with that, Richard gave a hearty clap on Draco's shoulder, a nod to Crabbe and Goyle, and headed off for class.

_**Author's Notes**__: beta-ed by Somigliana_


	15. Chapter 15 Mating Rituals

_**Author's Notes**__: For more information on the Myddvai, go Google it. The document program will not allow me to give the website at Mysterious Britian._

_Inspired by "The Song of Wandering Aengus"_ by _William Butler Yeats_

_Beta-ed by Somigliana_

_This chapter is dedicated to fantasy author Ray Bradbury_

**Mating Rituals**

Saturday was a warm spring day, and most of the older students had returned from Hogsmeade. Dinnertime was uneventful in the Great Hall as Richard and Matt poked at their food and wondered what to do for the rest of the day, while they ignored a group of second-year Hufflepuff girls who were giggling at the next table.

Fourteen-year old Jerome hurried into the room and slid up next to them on the bench. "Guess what? Gus is going fishing tonight," he said in a hushed voice.

Matt was all attention. "How do you know?"

"He bought thread and a tinderbox while we were at the village getting a present for Mum's birthday. I don't think he knows that I saw him." Jerome grabbed an empty plate and started filling it, spilling peas onto the tabletop.

"What does he need those for?" Richard asked.

"To go fishing," Jerome answered. He said to Matt, "I saw him talking to Hagrid just now, and he was pointing to the forest." He stuffed a forkful of beef into his mouth.

"He needs to get to the hazel trees. We can see them from the lake, but how can we get there from the castle?" Matt puzzled. "Has your brother ever been there?"

"What do the trees have anything to do with fishing?" Richard asked.

"I'm sure Hagrid knows how to get there," Jerome answered. He shoveled more food in.

Gus and his friends, all seventh-year students, came into the Great Hall and sat at their regular seats some distance away. The boys pretended not to notice, though Richard did see that Gus had gotten a haircut. Richard brushed his hair out of his eyes. He needed one himself.

"How do you know it's tonight?" Matt asked eagerly.

"The moon won't be out, so the stars will be bright. It's not raining, and soon school will be over, and we'll be back in London, and he won't be able to go fishing from there without everyone at St. Mungo's knowing about it," Jerome said between bites. "Also, he was shaving just a few minutes ago."

"What's wrong with that?" Richard wondered.

Both boys snorted and snickered.

"Don't you know?" Matt said in a low voice. "He's going to find out who he's going to marry!"

"WHAT?" Richard said, a little too loudly. The girls at the Hufflepuff table stopped giggling and looked at him. The twelve-year old boy glared back at them, and then, lowering his voice, leaned over and asked, "Why?"

The girls started giggling again.

"Saves time." Jerome shrugged. "This way, you at least know where to start looking."

"Yeah," Matt chimed in. "If she's _mer_, he knows that he's going to have to go to the lakes to find her. If she's not, and she's at the school, then maybe he'll know who she is already. Or if she's a Muggle, but I don't think that's happened before." Matt frowned thoughtfully.

Richard was puzzled. Matt and Jerome were Myddvai, wizards having merpeople among their ancestors, but the whole thing didn't make any sense.

"Isn't this...Divination?" Richard asked hesitantly.

"Nope. Divination is 'guess what this pile of peas on the tabletop predicts'. Gus is going to be doing some real old magic," Jerome said, grinning.

The Hufflepuffs were quietly talking amongst themselves.

"So what does fishing have to do with finding a girlfriend? There're girls all over the place, like those two girls from Hufflepuff who are always following him. And Gryffindor has girls who are always showing up. And Penelope Clearwater's always hanging around him," Richard said.

"We're not talking about _just_ a girlfriend," Jerome reminded him.

Just then, a girl wearing Slytherin robes and a prefect badge came over to where Gus was sitting. "Gus," she asked sweetly, "did you happen to see Draco Malfoy while you were at Hogsmeade? He was missing today, and I thought he might have been down there..."

"No, Mandy, sorry." He smiled back at her. The Hufflepuff girls started giggling again.

"Well, thanks." She blushed and lingered a moment more, then slowly walked back to the Slytherin table.

"And then there's her. She's always asking him questions," Jerome said quietly. "Why didn't Mandy ask _you_ where Malfoy was? He didn't sneak down there, did he?" He and Matt looked at Richard.

Richard sighed. "No. Professor Snape let us study in the Potions Classroom. Dray's afraid some Gryffindor girl is going to beat him in the exams, and Mr. Malfoy will be mad," he replied, pushing his hair out of his eyes again.

"Well, come watch with us," Jerome said with a grin. "Be sure to dress warm, and have something to eat." He picked up some ham and bread slices, making a crude sandwich. "It's going to be a long night. You don't have detention, do you?"

"Nope, not tonight," Richard answered, carefully loading up his pockets. The Hufflepuff girls were still looking at them, and giggling. They were very annoying.

"Oh, and don't tell Draco. It's just the three of us," Jerome said. "And don't let Gus know we know."

Richard glanced down the table to where Gus sat talking and eating with his friends. Next year he would be in training at St. Mungo's, and would become a Healer. He tried to imagine Gus being married, and as a father. Then he wondered what it would be like to be married. He glanced the other way, where first-year Lisa Turpin sat with her friends, then felt something hit his neck, and it bounced on the table. A Hufflepuff had thrown a small Brussel sprout at him. He thought about throwing it back, but then he noticed Quirrell at the Head Table, and realized that he might be watching. No food fight, and no detention for him tonight. He ignored the sprout and the girls, and slipped out the Great Hall with Matt and Jerome, and hurried to the Ravenclaw tower.

------------

The threesome went to their beds when the prefects emptied the Common room, and, a few moments later, snuck back down the dorm stairs, ran through the common room, and then slipped into the Quiet room, where they hid behind the sofa and the easy chairs. Richard dozed, but awoke suddenly when Matt poked him. Richard saw Gus just as he was leaving the room. He was wearing his best robes and carrying his cloak over his arm.

"Let's go!" Matt whispered to Richard. The boys huddled down and slipped through the two-way mirror that was the door to the corridor and chased after the tall eighteen-year old Ravenclaw who walked quickly and confidently through the castle. Peeves could be heard banging away at a distance. They saw Mrs. Norris, but Jerome tossed her a piece of ham. Satisfied with her bribe, the cat let them go their way.

Gus went down the main Corridor, and then slipped out a side door and headed directly to Hagrid's hut. He did not look behind him to notice the three younger boys, who stayed just outside the door and watched while Hagrid came out of the hut and met Gus on the school lawn. The large man was holding a lantern in his huge fist. The two talked as Gus put on his cloak, and then Hagrid escorted him to the edge of the forest and pointed out the path. Gus lit his wand, and slipped into the forest. The large man watched the forest for a short while, and then walked back to his hut. The three boys ran across the lawn and to the path, hoping that there was only the one way to the hazel wood.

There was no moon, but the path still was easy to follow in the starlight. Gus's wand-light was far ahead, and could be seen through a sparse patch of trees.  
The lake was shimmering in the distance. The woods smelled of springtime flowers, animal musk and tree mould. Little animals scampered around them, and Richard saw some rabbits playing in a clearing. An owl flew by, and bats were fluttering in the trees above their heads. He could hear water flowing nearby, but he couldn't see the stream.

"Shh," Jerome whispered. "There's something in the path."

They stopped. A huge centaur was blocking their way.

"What are foals doing in the woods at night?" he asked scornfully.

Richard was frightened. Would the centaur stop them? Would he hurt them?

Jerome answered boldly, though his voice squeaked a bit, "We're Myddvai; my brother is going fishing tonight, and we want to watch."

The centaur's attitude changed immediately to amusement. "Is he expecting to catch a trout?" He snorted. "I'll watch, too, for others have seen this magic, but I have not. Keep quiet; do not scare the fish," he ordered, "or the fisherman."

The centaur led them down the path a bit more. The boys could not see the wand's light, but the centaur soon stopped, paused, and then pointed them to a side path. They went uphill for a few more metres and then stopped.

They were in a clearing, edged by a fallen tree trunk. The centaur pointed to the trunk. They looked over it and could see Gus below them some distance away. He had planted his wand in a small pile of rocks; its light cast a soft glow in the small clearing. Near him was the stream. Its water was moving fast in the middle, but slow on the sides, creating soft tinkling sounds. Wand light sparkled on its surface.

Gus was kneeling on the ground, clearing away a patch of leaves. He moved away quite a bit for forest debris before he found a layer of rock. He then gathered some dead branches off of a small tree, and brought out some kindling from his robes, a few sticks and some paper. He fumbled with the tinderbox.

"Why doesn't he just cast a spell?" Richard whispered. The tinderbox seemed to be a lot of work.

"He doesn't want it to interfere with the magic," Jerome whispered back.

"If he catches a fish, how long before it turns into a girl?" Matt whispered.

"Not long, but he has to catch it first. And it has to be a trout. A small silver one," Jerome answered.

"What if it isn't?" Richard asked. An acorn was burrowing into Richard's leg. He tossed it away. He was having trouble getting comfortable.

"Then everyone at St. Mungo's is going to know when he goes fishing next time," Jerome replied.

"She's supposed to call him by his name. What if she doesn't? What if she calls him by some other name?" Matt asked.

"Like, what? 'Hey, you?' It's part of the magic," Jerome whispered, keeping his eye on his brother.

"What if she's _mer_? Will she be flopping around on the ground like a fish?" Richard asked.

"She'll have legs," Jerome replied. "But her face and her hair will be different. And she'll probably call him by his water name."

"What are his names?" the centaur quietly asked.

"Augustus for land, Aengus for water," Jerome said.

"What will she be wearing?" Matt persisted.

"Flowers, according to accounts," Jerome answered.

"That's it? Just flowers?" Matt asked. All four leaned further over the log to get a better view.

"I don't know," Jerome answered.

The centaur recovered his dignity and said nothing. Richard could feel the heat of the beast's body behind him, as well as Matt's on his left. The spring night air was getting chilly. He was wearing the cloak Mr. Malfoy had given him, but the warming spell had faded over the school year, and it seemed that the cloak had shrunk in the shoulders and length.

The sparks caught. Gus tended it carefully into flames. Moths were fluttering around the trees, headed to the small fire. A couple landed on Richard's face. He shooed them off. It was very tiring, leaning against the rough log, watching the hypnotic flames dancing below. Above the treetops, the white stars were brilliant, and the not-so-distant lake was glimmering with their reflections.

Gus stood up and looked at the hazel trees. He carefully selected and cut a straight branch and peeled the bark off it, feeding the pieces into the flames. He tied the thread on to one end of the stick, and walked over to the stream, pacing its stony bank.

"Where is he going to get berries?" Matt wondered. "Isn't it the wrong season?"

"The hazel nuts are starting to form. That is what the berry is," the centaur answered quietly.

"Then what? What happens after she shows up?" Richard asked.

"She fades away – just vanishes," Jerome said thoughtfully. "So Gus has to get a good look at her before she goes."

"She doesn't even tell him what her name is? What if she changes her hair colour or something," Richard asked. This whole meet-the-girl trial was complicated, Richard thought. Dating would be easier. Maybe, maybe not. He was relieved that he didn't have to worry about it. Yet. The giggling Hufflepuff girls came to his mind, and he firmly pushed them out. Lisa Turpin came to mind, but he let her linger there a moment longer before the twelve-year old boy pushed her out too.

Gus went back to the fire, pulled out of a pocket a sandwich and a container of liquid and started to eat and drink. Up above him, hidden by the log, the three boys ate also. Gus took off his cloak and put it aside, and then straightened his robes, combed his hair and brushed his teeth with a twig. He took a handkerchief and dusted his shoes, and then straightened his robes and combed his hair again.

"What's he doing all that for?" Richard asked. "She can't see him, can she?"

The others did not answer.

"What if she doesn't like him?" Richard asked.

"You sound just like Draco," Matt grumbled.

Richard decided not to ask any more questions.

White moths were fluttering around them on their way to the flames. Trees leaves were dancing in the firelight. The stream continued its low song. Richard felt numb.

The fire had turned to embers. It would soon be dawn. The dew was starting to drip off the trees, and the white stars were flickering in the sky as in the east the sky was turning grey. Matt was yawning, Jerome was jerking himself awake. The centaur was watching, standing still in the cold pre-dawn air.

There was a faint "plop" sound, and all three boys startled awake. Had Gus had cast the berry into the stream? The stars above flickered out, and Richard Goodfellow fell asleep.

-------------

Richard felt something wet on his face and heard a cacophony of bird songs. He opened his eyes and saw a gigantic dog's tongue coming in for another lick. "Gaugh!" he shouted, stumbling to his feet. Matt and Jerome were already standing and looking sullen. The woods were bright with sunlight. The centaur was gone.

Hagrid was standing at the edge of their clearing. He looked at them, amusement twinkling in his dark eyes. "Well, what are you doing out here? What were you looking for?"

Matt glared balefully. Jerome sighed. "Nothing, I fell asleep. Did you see anything?" he asked Hagrid.

Hagrid just chuckled. "Come on; get up to the castle with you. There might be something left for breakfast if you hurry up. I'll show you the way back." The dog snuffed around the ground, licking up leftover scraps of food.

Richard pushed his hair out of his eyes and peered back down into the lower clearing. Gus was gone. It looked like he had covered the fire spot with wet leaves. The boy was aware of how stiff his body was and that his cloak was covered with old wet leaves. He ran his hand through his hair and found more leaves and a spider in it.

They went through the forest, led by the giant man and his huge dog. In the clearings, spring flowers were blooming, and the green leaves were small and light. Birds darted about in the warming air. As they came out of the forest, Richard saw that the apple orchards were blooming near the school, and he could smell their fragrance. Did the old magic work for Gus? Did he catch a trout, and did it turn into a girl? Who was she? Was she Mandy or Penelope, or else how would Gus ever find her?

Richard could smell breakfast in the air, and all his thoughts turned to food.

-------------

After taking off their leaf-littered outer cloaks and leaving them on a bench in the corridor, the threesome slipped silently into the Great Hall for what was left of breakfast. There were some students in the room: the group of giggling Hufflepuff girls, three or four Slytherins and a few Ravenclaws. Jerome, Matt and Richard looked over at Gus and his friends as they went to their seats.

Gus seemed different somehow. The young man was wearing his casual robes, and was sitting in a beam of golden sunlight, with dust motes dancing around him. He looked confident and very, very pleased. Richard saw Mandy up at the Head table; it looked like she was talking to Professor Snape about something, and then she headed down by the Ravenclaw table, and looked at Gus. He did not look back. Richard saw a wave of disappointment and sorrow flash over her face, and Richard suspected that Mandy would not be asking Gus any more questions.

Professor Snape left the room, leaving only the Headmaster at the Head table. Gus and his friends got up to leave, too.

Jerome looked back at his brother. "Missed it. Missed the whole thing."

Matt loaded up his plate with eggs and bacon. "Are you going to do it?"

Jerome gave Matt a glance. "Are you?" he replied, as he took some toast.

Richard toyed with his oatmeal. "Could I do it? Sometime?" He pushed his hair out of his eyes.

Jerome watched his brother leave the room. "You could try," he answered, sounding doubtful.

Richard felt sad. He probably wasn't Myddvai; after all, what were the chances? His mother still didn't know her own name, let alone his father's and their ancestors'. He was still a Merlin; a boy without a known father. He let himself sink into self-pity. He needed some more sleep, but in sleeping, he missed so much. And he missed seeing what Gus saw. Then, something hit him on his head, and something plopped into his juice.

"What…" Matt started to ask, picking up a small green ball between his thumb and forefinger. More continued to shower them from above, onto the table and into their food, while the girls over at the Hufflepuff table howled with laughter.

"Oh, no," Jerome groaned. "Those witches are peaing on us!"

The twelve-year old boy looked at the flood of peas - his breakfast was ruined - and scowled.

Girls. Who needed them?


	16. Chapter 16 Draco in the Forbidden Forest

**Draco's Detention**

The eagle owl landed in front of Richard's breakfast, interrupting his and Matt's conversation about their upcoming exams.

"And then there's Draco," Matt said dryly, recognizing the bird.

Over at the Slytherin table, Draco was almost standing up, watching his owl deliver its message.

Richard took the scrap of parchment from the bird, and offered it a piece of bacon. The bird ignored it and flew away immediately.

He opened the paper, and written on it was simply, "Richard".

Matt leaned over, glanced at the parchment, and then glared up at Draco. Draco looked satisfied, but then shot Matt back a glare before he started talking to Crabbe.

"What's this about? Are you his house-elf or something?" Matt fumed.

Richard sighed. "It's important."

His breakfast was finished anyway. He grabbed a pastry for a mid-morning snack, and went over to sit next to Draco. Crabbe slid further down the bench, allowing the two some privacy.

Draco didn't wait for any greetings. "Look what I got," he grumbled. "What do I do now?"

Richard pushed his hair out of his eyes and read the note:

_Your detention will take place at eleven o'clock tonight.  
Meet Mr. Filch in the entrance hall.  
Professor M. McGonagall_

"Well?" Draco asked. "What do I do now?" he repeated himself.

Richard studied the note more. "Eleven o'clock? That's really late for a detention." He handed the note back to Draco. "Maybe she made a mistake and meant seven."

"What happens on detentions with Filch?" the younger boy asked. "You've had them: You'd know."

Richard had had a detention with the caretaker. He had helped move his chains and thumbscrew collection from one barrel to another, tested the locks, polished the keys, and then spent the remainder of the hour sipping weak tea and nibbling slightly stale biscuits while pretending to admire Filch's enchanted walnut (a gift of St. Mungo's, for completing the Non-Magical Emergency Medical Training course) and his collection of magical musical toys that Filch brought to his office in honour of the occasion of Richard's "visit". St. Mungo's was very good to Squibs, and Filch was very appreciative of it.

"They believe in a man there at St. Mungo's, that they do. Make him feel useful, wanted, even if he has some challenges that other wizards don't have," Filch had said proudly.

Richard doubted very much that Draco would get the same type of treatment, even though his father was a school governor.

Richard decided to tell Draco, "I think you'll just be doing lines or something. And if your detention was suppose to be at seven, then just show him this note, and you'll probably get off without doing anything."

Draco looked relieved. "You think so?"

Richard shrugged and pushed the hair out of his eyes again.

Draco's eyes narrowed. "You need a hair-cut, Gitfellow."

Richard blew his hair out of his eyes. "Thanks, Dray, I'll schedule one for next month."

-----------------

The Potions classroom was empty, except for the two boys. One was writing at a table, the other was sitting on a chair, kicking another chair out of boredom.

"What time is it now?" Draco asked, giving the chair another kick.

"It's another four hours before your detention. You could go back to your common room, or you could go to the library, or you could go take a nap. I'd vote for a nap myself; I have Astronomy tonight," Richard retorted as he cleared up a blot on the parchment.

"I'd rather wait here a bit," Draco said. "We could play games or something," he suggested hopefully.

Richard shrugged. His inventory was finished; it would take a few more sentences to finish the report. Exams were coming up, but he didn't have any more homework. No one would need the Potions classroom, and Matt was on shift in the hospital wing.

"Got any games?" Draco asked, looking around the room, as if Professor Snape kept some on the shelves.

"I've got 'Sticks'," Richard replied. He put the finished report on the teacher's desk, then opened up his over-stuffed book bag and started to rummage in it.

Draco's face took on a look of horror and disgust. "What do you have in that bag? My father bought you that bag, and that's how you take care of it? I'll bet you have chocolate cauldrons from the first day of school in there. I'll bet it stinks!"

Richard glared at Draco as he pulled out the tin. "Do you want to play Sticks, or do you want to find someplace else to hang around for the next four hours."

Draco scowled. "Sticks. Dump them out."

Richard put the book bag aside, and poured out the game out of its tin.

It was a simple game, used by the Healers of St. Mungo's to keep their skills sharp, and it was easy enough for its school children to learn. Richard and Draco had played it for years. It was similar to "Jackstraws", but with the wizards, the sticks had to be moved using wandless magic, pushing and pulling without their fingertips touching the sticks. The sticks were colored, and were to be pulled out in order of their colours; points were awarded based on the colors and numbers pulled out without disrupting the others. It was a very useful activity for warming up before pulling a walnut out of a nose.

Draco wasn't doing too well with the game, and they had to start over a couple of times before he was able to concentrate. Richard had about twenty to Draco's thirteen, when Draco started to talk.

"Richard," he said hesitatingly.

"Hmm?" Richard replied, his attention focused on pulling a red stick out without knocking over a green one.

"What's it like, not have a father?" Draco asked quietly.

Richard frowned as he pulled the stick out and put it in his pile.

"I have a father. Everyone has a father. I just don't know anything about him."

"But you're a Merlin. And that means you're a 'fatherless boy'. And that means that you have a lot of fuss made about you."

Richard's turn was still going, but he realized that Draco was going to keep talking.

"Look, you've know me, what, since we were babies, for crying out loud. What fuss? My father might be alive or he might be dead. I don't know. Mum doesn't know. No one knows. That's what it means." Richard studied the stack, looking for a green stick that he could get to easily.

"What if he's alive?" Draco asked. "Why hasn't he come for you?"

"Because maybe somebody did to him what was done to Mum; wiped out all of her memories. Or maybe he's been kissed by a Dementor, or maybe he's really stuck someplace, or maybe he's in hiding. I don't know. When I leave Hogwarts, I'll go look for him." He found a green stick, and carefully pushed it out of the pile and added it to his collection.

There was a silence as Draco collected a black stick, then, as Richard went for a blue one, Draco started again.

"Is it weird not having a father?"

Richard thought for a moment. "No. I guess not. I mean, I don't know what it is to have one of my own. There's Matt's dad, and Healer Thompson and "Uncle Al", and your dad…" Something flashed in Draco's eyes, but Richard kept on talking, "...And everyone is always looking out for me, and asking how I'm doing, like they're afraid I'm going to turn out to be the next dark wizard, and cause a war or something…"

The door flew open into the classroom, startling the two boys. They both jumped to their feet. Professor Snape billowed into the classroom, then stopped suddenly, his eyes glancing from one boy to the other and back again.

The silence grew oppressive.

"Well," Draco said with a drawl, "Thanks for the game, but I really must be getting back to the common room. And Gitfellow, do remember to get that hair-cut."

He gave the teacher a smirk and left the classroom, leaving the teacher and boy alone.

The teacher continued to stare at Richard. The boy gave back a weak smile. "We were playing Sticks, professor, sir."

The teacher dropped his gaze to the game. "Looks like you were ahead," he said dryly.

Richard gave a shrug. "Maybe. The report is on your desk." He Summoned the game pieces back into the tin.

Professor Snape went to his desk and looked over the report. "Mr. Goodfellow, how did your classes go today?"

"They were okay, professor, sir. I didn't do too well in the Transfigurations exercises, but I nailed the test in Charms."

"Interesting," the teacher said." Have you had any detentions lately?"

"No, not for a couple of weeks now." Richard was at the door. "Anything else, professor, sir?" he asked.

"No, that is all. Good night, Mr. Goodfellow."

"Good night, professor, sir."

Richard closed the door quietly as he left.

------------

The Ravenclaw's Astronomy class met at on its tower at midnight. The focus of the lesson was on a comet that was visible above the mountain on the side of the school away from the lake and the Forbidden Forest.

Someone in the class thought that they saw a red shooting star at the beginning of class, over the forest, but, like all shooting stars, it was vanished before anyone else could turn to see it. Richard and Matt peered through the telescopes at the few houses that were visible in the distance, but the windows were shuttered shut. There was a pasture of ponies to examine (a foal had been born since the last class), and the orchards were still in bloom. There was a fox on the hillside a few kilometers away, and some rabbits were playing in the moonlight. The Grey Lady and a couple of other ghosts came to the lecture part, but had nothing to add to the lesson.

The comet was recorded and described, and the students drew pictures of it and mapped its route. The movements of various other stars and planets were duly noted, the moon was glanced at, class was dismissed, and everyone was back in the Ravenclaw dormitories on time.

----------------

The next morning, Richard had forgotten about Draco's detention. It wasn't until he was finished with breakfast and leaving the table when he saw Draco glaring at him, that he remembered.

"Uh, got to go," he told Matt.

Matt snorted, but said nothing as he joined the rest of the Ravenclaws on their ways to their classes.

Richard pushed his way through the crowd until he got over to the Slytherin table, but Draco was at the doors by then. It took Richard a few moments more to get to the other boy, who pointedly turned his back at him as soon as he arrived.

"Hi, Draco, how was detention last night?" Richard asked.

Draco immediately jabbed an elbow in his ribs. "Not here, not now," he hissed back.

"Oof. At lunch time then?" Richard asked.

Draco gave a brief nod, and disappeared into the swirl of students.

Richard was looking forward to Draco's story, hoping to compare it with his own detention. He arrived at lunch early, ate quickly, and waited. Draco came in, sat and ate at his own table, and then left, throwing Richard an indifferent glance.

Richard was puzzled, but decided that when Draco was ready to talk, he would.

-------------

Richard felt he did well on the exams, with the exception of a fit of sleepiness during the Defense Against the Dark Arts. He felt that his grades would be acceptable to his mentors at St. Mungo's, and pleasing to his benefactor, Mr. Malfoy.

After the last of the exams, Richard was sitting in his favorite window in the Ravenclaw Rehearsal Room, looking down into the courtyard below and watching a small group of Hufflepuffs girls teasing – or perhaps tormenting – a couple of boys from Slytherin, when Draco slipped into the room.

"Thought I'd find you here," he coldly stated.

"Well, here I am. Ready to talk?" Richard jumped down from the window, and went over to the door. He was surprised and delighted to realize that he was now half a head taller than Draco. He failed to suppress a smirk.

Draco scowled back up at him. "Let's sit over here." He motioned to the wall, where some floor pillows were stacked. The two boys sat down, their backs against the wall.

There was a silence. Richard waited. Then he waited some more before he broke the silence, "So, how was your detention?"

More silence.

"You didn't write lines with Filch, did you?" Draco grumbled.

"No, but I always did with Quirrell. What happened? Were you on time?"

Draco sighed. "Yes, I was on time. Longbottom, Granger and Potter were late."

Richard was surprised. Other than when he and Matt served their detentions together in their first year, he hadn't served detention with anyone else.

"What were they having detention for?"

"Don't know, didn't ask." Draco scowled. "Hope it was for the dragon. Potter should have been kicked out of school months ago."

"You mean for the flying stunt? You would have gone too, if he had. You were up in the air first," Richard pointed out.

"No, for being out after hours, in the trophy room." Draco grumbled.

Richard frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"I challenged Potter to a wizard's duel in the trophy room, and then I talked about it around Filch. I didn't go, of course, but you could hear the noises he and Weasley made all the way down into the dungeons, Peeves was shouting about it, and the Bloody Baron was complaining about the fuss the next morning." Draco explained. "Wish I could have seen it." He looked satisfied.

Richard closed his eyes. Draco could be so thick sometimes. "You challenged Potter to a wizard's duel. In the trophy room. What were you thinking of?"

Draco smirked. "That he'd do it. Show up. I didn't, of course, but Filch _should_ have caught him, and he and Weasley_ should_ have been on the train back home."

Richard shook his head. "No, I meant the trophy room! That's the worst place for a duel. All the reflective surfaces, like mirrors, and the glass! Or one of you could have fallen into a case, and then there'd be blood all over the place. You could have hit an artery and bled to death."

The other boy scowled back. "You Mungos and your bloody messes. It takes all the fun out of the sport."

"Well, here's the other thing that's going to 'take the fun out of the sport': The trophy room is a Hufflepuff _snog_ room! Do you know what that would have sounded like, you meeting Potter at night in a _snog_ room!" Richard rolled his eyes. "Never mind all that now. What happened on the detention?"

Draco readjusted himself on the pillows. "We left the castle and Filch took us to Hagrid, who was mad at Filch because we were late. Then we went into the Forbidden Forest, even though I pointed out that werewolves were probably living in it."

Richard knew that there was a small colony of the miserable people in a part of the forest farthest from the castle, and that it was sealed off with wards, but said nothing. It was a St. Mungo's secret, but he wondered how much Draco knew.

"Why was Hagrid taking you into the Forest?"

"To look for unicorn blood," Draco replied.

"But that stuff's illegal. It's a life sentence to be dealing with it, and Hagrid would know that."

"There was a unicorn bleeding to death in the Forest," Draco replied. "P - I found it – Potter was with me – the unicorn was dead, and the job was done, so I left and came back to the castle." Draco seemed to be very interested in looking at the window across the room.

Richard brushed the hair out of his eyes and studied the younger boy's profile for a moment, wondering if Draco was going to say anything else.

Draco turned finally and looked back at Richard. "What are you looking at, Gitfellow?"

"I'm just wondering… Did you and Potter talk about anything?"

"No, why?"

"Well, you said that you and Potter found the dead unicorn, so where was Longbottom..." he wondered aloud, as he brushed more hair out of his eyes.

"Oh, he got scared, so Hagrid had to take him and keep him with Granger. They were someplace else when I found the unicorn," he coolly explained.

"So how long were you with Potter?"

"Some time, maybe half an hour. Why?" Draco looked at Richard suspiciously.

Richard shrugged, and brushed the hair out of his eyes. "Because for months, you've been wanting to tell Potter off, and here you had the chance and you didn't do it."

Draco glared at him. "We were in the Forest, where there are things there that you can't imagine. I'm not an idiot to go attracting their attention." Draco's voice was rising. "You've never been in the forest at night, so you have no idea what it is like in there. It's dangerous, Gitfellow," he shouted. "There are things in there that drink blood, even unicorn blood, because…" Draco paused, and swallowed, burying his eyes with his fists as he hoarsely finished, "I saw it do it."

Richard wanted to ask more questions. He also wanted to comfort Draco, but knew that there was nothing he could do. And he wasn't going to tell him about his night in the Forbidden Forest, so he sat and looked at the opposite wall and its windows. "I believe you, Draco. And you're right - I can't imagine what it would be like, to see something like that." It sounded awkward, but it was the best he could offer.

Draco curled himself up, his arms on in his knees, his face buried in his arms.

The sky outside darkened. The hallway behind the closed door got noisier, the floor and the wall felt harder. Still the two boys sat silently. Finally, suddenly, Draco stood up, and without another glance at Richard, left the room, slamming the door behind him.

Richard got up. He felt stiff, and his foot had fallen asleep. He opened the door and walked down the corridor toward the Great Hall, and then stumbled as if a Trip Jinx had hit him. He fell against someone, who caught him by his elbow.

"W-w-well, who d-d-do we have here?" a familiar voice stuttered.

A hand brushed Richards' hair out of his eyes, the palm resting on his forehead for a brief moment.

"D-d-detention, M-Mister G-Goodfellow," Professor Quirrell announced. "L-let's hope it is the l-last one."


	17. Chapter 17 The Last Detention

_beta-ed by Somigliana_

**The Last Detention**

Richard hurried to the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, arriving shortly before seven. The Ravenclaws were going to have an "end of exams" party, and the detention was going to make him late. He hoped he would be in time for the raid on Hufflepuff, scheduled later that night, but he had his doubts.

Professor Quirrell gave him the assignment to write "I will not run in the school corridors" one thousand times, and then left the classroom, closing the door behind him.

The assignment seemed to take forever. The quills kept breaking, the ink was runny and dripped all over his work, and the parchment kept rolling up on him. Richard tried to stay calm, but every so often he had to throw down his quill in frustration and stomp around the room, hoping that the professor would not come back and find him out of his seat.

Worse, he was getting hungry. Dinner seemed to have been a long time away, and he had not packed a snack, as he had planned to eat at the party.

Carefully, he dumped out part of his book bag onto his desk. Ruefully, he privately agreed that Draco was right: the bag was a mess. He fumbled through the loose papers, empty ink bottles, bits of quills, a worn out Fanged Frisbee, three socks (he couldn't remember why they were in there, but he resisted sniffing them), dried apple cores, hard boiled egg shells, a dried brussel sprout, a small jar of liquid stuff, some candy wrappers, and a half-eaten Cauldron Cake. He decided that the cake was from Christmas, and therefore might still have some food value. He ate it while rummaging around in the rest of the bag. He found and ate some stiff Liquorice Wands, and a half-eaten Mars bar that he had bought in February at the Hufflepuff school store. Frustrated, he shoved the mess back into the bag, keeping out the small jar.

He studied it. It was the jar of nutmeg-flavoured Murtlap that Professor Snape had refused to keep. The grey fungus looked like it was disintegrating in the vinegar, and the nutmeg looked like something a cat left behind on his bed once. Richard believed that it would be the worst possible thing he could eat, but it had been so long since dinner, and he was starving.

He put the jar down and leaned back in his chair. The early summer twilight outside the classroom windows had faded to a black night. Professor Quirrell had not come back. Perhaps he had forgotten him? Richard left his bag at his desk and went to the door carefully. He did not want another detention. He tried the door, but the handle wouldn't open. He was locked in.

Frustrated, he kicked at the door, but his foot was stopped just before he would have made contact. Shocked, he stared at the door, and then tried to hit it with his hand and felt the cushion of the ward. The door was warded shut. The professor didn't just go out and forget him: he had imprisoned him! Shaking, Richard went back to the desk and retrieved his wand. _"Alohomora",_ he whispered hoarsely. _"Alohomora, Alohomora," _he shouted. Nothing happened.

He went over to the fireplace, to look for Floo powder, and then ran to the professor's office to find some. The door was also warded there.

_Where are Matt and Jerome?_ he wondered. _Why don't they come and get me out of here? _

He paced the room, and then decided to call for a house-elf. "Chaucer! Chaucer!" No answer.

He wondered how to summon a ghost. "Grey Lady?" he tried calling, hoping that she would drift in. "Professor Binns? Sir Nicholas?" He tried them all.

Not one came to his call.

It was when he decided to try the portraits that he noticed that all the pictures were off the walls. A quick search of the classroom showed that they were completely gone.

All communication had been cut off. And he was starving. Another search showed that there was nothing to eat in the classroom, except for the small jar and its vile-looking contents.

Angrily and desperately, he took its top off and, in one movement, tossed the contents into his mouth. The familiar taste of Murtlap appeased him, and he quickly swallowed the vinegary liquid as he kept the fungus and the nutmeg in his mouth, chewed quickly – the whole mess was rubbery – and swallowed again.

It was while pacing the room again that he realized that his bladder was full. _Maybe, _he thought, _there is a trick doorway to the hall, or some part of a wall that would dissolve if touched right? _He carefully felt along the side of the room away from the windows, and found a sconce that moved near the office door. He carefully twisted it, and a part of the wall slid open. It was a small, dark water closet. When he entered it, the mirror over the sink gave off a faint glow. Without examining the room, he went to the only part of it that mattered. Something brushed against his shoulder, but he didn't examine it until after he was done. It brushed against him again, unnerving him. The light in the room was too dim for him to see what had touched him. He held up his wand. _"Lumos,"_ he whispered.

In the wand's steady light he saw a long, purple strip of fabric, hanging from a makeshift clothesline. There were four or five others, all the same colour as Professor Quirrell's turban, obviously having been washed in what smelled like sandalwood soap and hung up to dry. It didn't make any sense – the turban Quirrell wore stank. Why would he wear a turban that stank when he had other turbans to wear? And why did he have so many, all the same?

The room reminded him of the nightmares he'd had after Halloween. He fled back to the classroom, slamming the door behind him, and then stayed by the windows, as far from the other room as possible. The torches in the classroom were flickering out, and the night sky was more visible in the windows. Too soon, the last torch died, plunging the room momentarily, and then his eyes adjusted to the light from outside. It was very cold in the room, and Richard was freezing. He paced to keep his feet warm, and he paced to calm himself from his unnamed fears. It was almost as bad as when Quirrell threw him into the janitor's closet, but worse, as he could hear others, but now he could only hear himself, as though everyone else had deserted the castle. Remembering the troll reminded him again of his nightmares, of being strangled –

And then the nightmares came true.

Richard stumbled and fell, hitting his shoulder against a desk. His knees smashed into the stone floor, and his breath cut off. His eyes felt as if they would pop out of his head, and his heart raced in his ears. Horrified, he lost control of his arms and his legs as they thrashed about, knocking against the student desks. He flipped onto his back and felt that something was on his chest, pressing against it, pressing against his neck and prising his jaws open. He focused his eyes on a slight grey vapour that hung about him, and two eyes in it glared back, faint and red. An odd part of his thoughts detached and floated to another part of his brain. _Is that my reflection?_ it quietly wondered to itself. _Is that the fog from my breath? _Something felt like it was pressing against his forehead, like a hand pushing his head back. Richard managed a rasp of air and felt something try to go down his throat.

A loud, different voice was in his head, _"I own you,"_ it roared. _"I claim you!"_

Richard felt the Murtlap-laced vomit rise in his throat, and he tried to retch. The odd part of his brain seemed bemused as it answered in its quiet voice. _Really? How did that happen? _

A high pitched voice was screaming, "Richard Goodfellow! Richard Goodfellow!"

_Hello?_ the thought replied. Richard's body jerked into more spasms, but the heavy feeling on his chest stayed, and his vision rapidly faded to blackness.

There was a loud BANG, and the last thing he heard was a muffled babble of voices before all was still.


	18. Chapter 18 Possession

_Originally beta-ed by Somigliana. Then I added some more stuff, so any errors therein are mine._

**Possession**

The painful darkness faded before a dim light that that broke apart like soap scum, and merged back again. The pain became a dull throb laced with sharp hot sparks. Richard found himself looking at people and places - some he didn't know, some he recognized. Some images flashed for a second and others floated by. He heard odd muffled sounds, but for the most part, he heard himself gasping for air.

_A unicorn ran in a forest, stumbling and bleeding, and then it fell and when he went closer, the scene changed to a roomful of people in black robes and silver masks. Then there were long rows of standing stones. There was an old woman in a black dress, smiling at him. There was a woman with long wavy blonde hair falling over her brown robes - she glared at him. He saw students in blue uniforms chatting in a classroom, and after them he saw a forest and a lake, and then a house on a hill. He went inside and saw two men and a woman. They looked horrified. Green light flashed, and they fell down._

_"I claim this body!" _the voice shouted. _"Get out!"_

Pain returned. A different voice cried out, "The Floo isn't working!" Richard's eyes fluttered open, and he saw white faces staring back. The pain increased. His head hit stone, and he blacked out again.

_Two rabbits were mating in the moonlight; a werewolf attacked and devoured them. He saw a tall white castle, and then he was inside it, looking out over a blue sea, sunlight sparkling on its waves. He saw a man with short blonde spiky hair wearing a brown robe, and then a woman with heavy-lidded eyes and long black hair holding a sliver mask. Hagrid was proudly introducing him to Harry Potter, who was gazing up at him. Next he was in a somewhat familiar room, where some of the professors of Hogwarts were laughing. He saw a strange, dark forest. He saw himself - Richard the schoolboy - working at a desk in a classroom by himself. He saw some trolls, sitting in a forest clearing. After that he saw a house, and inside, a man wearing glasses who was shouting, and then another flash of green._

Suddenly it felt as if every blood vessel in his body had exploded. He came back to consciousness and realized that his body was being moved from one place to another. "Stay with us, Richard," a distant voice urged.

_"Get out!"_ the other voice ordered.

His body flailed out of his control. Unconsciousness returned like a wave, and then he was in agognizing pain again. Sounds about him echoed, as if from far away.

_He saw a number of teenagers, laughing on a sandy beach by a blue sea. He saw white houses with red roofs. Then he saw a group of small children, all dressed alike in grey clothing, walking about in a field of flowers. A grey sea was visible in the distance. There was a dark cave, and inside it, a dark lake, full of floating corpses. The corpses lifted up their heads and gazed at him with sightless eyes. A girl screamed. A house-elf whimpered._

His body was being jerked up – he could feel gravity cracking his bones. He opened his eyes slowly and saw that walls of stone were passing him by. He was being carried like a coffin to its grave, his arms and legs were stiff and immovable. His pall-bearers feet scuffled loudly, and then faded as he sank back into the flood of sights that filled his mind.

_A wardrobe was on fire; he could hear its crackle. A fat woman simpered at him, a silver cup was in her hands. A house-elf blinked at him. A girl wearing glasses snarled at him. An amethyst brooch was in his fingers, and it disappeared and then a book snapped shut in his hands. A snake came out of a bathroom faucet. A goblin walked ahead of him down a long dark tunnel. A gold ring was on his finger, a gold locket in his hand. A dead rabbit hung from a ceiling, a child was crying and screaming somewhere, and woman scolded. A vault opened, revealing nothing. The Hogwarts ghosts drifted by - the Grey Lady stopped to look at him. Something twinkled in the dark of a forest. A smiling crowd stood before him, an old man holding a purple turban before him. He saw the moon in the tree tops, and then he heard a different scream. He looked to the sound - he saw a boy running through the trees, and he saw Harry Potter, staring at him, and then falling down onto his knees, his hands covering his face. The scene shifted again. A woman was shielding a baby, crying. There was another flash of green._

His body shuddered. The forward movement had stopped, and now he sensed he was to be placed into a grave. The ground came up, and his body crumbled as it met it.

"The Healers are here!", a voice said with an odd echoing sound.

A part of him leapt for joy, but the pain crushed him back.

_He was in a circle of stones that danced around him in the evening light. He was in Diagon Alley, and then he was in Knockturn Alley. __He saw a snake on a forest floor; the snake looked back at him. A unicorn danced in a moon-lit glade. He was in a small valley, and giants leered at him. He was in the Forbidden Forest, and he could see the school from the trees. He saw Professor Kettleburn, smiling and waving him to follow; he had both of his arms and hands, and the sun was bright. He saw Professor Snape scowling at him, and the night was dark._

A voice spoke, breaking through his vision. "Fill a tub with iron water, and heat it to body temperature. Add Murtlap…"

_"No!" _the other voice shouted. Pain overwhelmed the boy, and he retreated.

_He saw corridors, flat walls with flat paint, and a tired looking woman in a drab uniform-style dress. A thin child peered around her, its face wet with tears and snot. He saw corridors of white marble. He saw corridors of grey stone. Hogwarts!_ Part of him cried out. Pain shot through him.

_There was a man with a long beard wearing a purple outfit, followed by the face of Quirrell, wrapping purple cloth on his head. There was a cozy, cluttered cottage room, where an old woman dressed in black sipped tea. The scene changed again. There was a filthy man in a filthy house. There was a green cloud in the night sky. There was a tattoo of green skull with a snake on the inside of his arm._

There were hands on Richard's head, prying his mouth open. Richard screamed from the pain; he could feel every whorl on the fingers on his skin. He could taste Murtlap in his mouth. His throat gagged and he felt liquid trickle out. He felt metal blades burning his skin and was vaguely aware that his clothes were being cut from him.

_Small golden objects fluttered about him. He saw Harry Potter standing in front of him with an expression of disgust and horror, the scar on his forehead a dark brown._

A wave of pain overwhelmed Richard, and his hands burned.

_He saw a baby and another flash of green. Then there was darkness, and eventually Professor Quirrell's terrified face swam into view. A young man with black hair and dark eyes gazed from a mirror, as he adjusted his green and silver prefect badge on his school robes._

Richard could feel his clothes being stripped off. Hands lifted his body and placed it into a warm womb. The pain slipped from him like oil in the water, and it seemed to float away.

_A unicorn studied him as though he were a reflection in a sun lit pool. Sunlight filled his vision, and then it faded away._

Richard slipped quietly into darkness and knew nothing else.

------

He awoke gradually to the murmur of voices. He slowly opened his eyes. Sunlight streamed into the hospital wing. He could smell roast chicory and Murtlap; he knew that Healer Mathews was somewhere near.

He tried, but he could not move his body. The blankets were tight around him.

"He's awake," Gus announced as he came into view. "Richard?"

"Yeah?" he croaked back, and then he fell back into darkness.

--------

Later still feeling very tired, and very wary, he opened his eyes and tried to look around. There was a privacy screen around him.

Healer Matthews was sitting in a chair by Richard's bed, sipping a mug of his Murtlap brew. The sight was familiar, and Richard relaxed.

"You gave us quite a scare there," the Healer said.

Wordlessly, Richard struggled to get out of bed. "Here, take my arm," he said soothingly, helping the boy to his feet, and assisting him to the bathroom.

When he was finished, he noticed that there were other screens set up and scattered around the room. "Who else is here?" Richard wondered aloud.

"This one is Professor Quirrell, and this one is Harry Potter." The Healer waved at two sets of screens. "We're still just learning what happened to them. Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley are with Madam Pomphrey in her office. Headmaster Dumbledore is with them. And when you're ready, I hope that you can tell us what happened to you."

Richard looked at him and realized that he couldn't remember. Everything had faded as if it were a nightmare, leaving behind his stiff and achy body and a splitting headache. He felt a wave of nausea. He stumbled back to his bed and fell unconscious on it.

-------------

He was picking at his lunch in the hospital wing. His jaw ached, and the skin on his hands was scratched and sore. The sunlight played on the cutlery and sparkled on the surface of the soup. The light reminded him of a summer's day when he and Matt had walked through a street faire, and of a girl with big glasses. His heart froze as he remembered her matter-of-fact voice with French accent, "Someone wants your body, but not your soul…"

_"I own you!"_ the voice had said. And memories slowly started to sift in.

"Healer Mathews," he whispered, and then louder, "Healer Mathews!" He started to shake, and he spilled his food from its tray as he looked for a tattoo on the inside of his arm.

-------------

When the were in the privacy of Madam Pomfrey's office. Richard had told the Healer everything that he could remember. The Headmaster and Madam Pomphrey were out in the wing, checking on Harry Potter and Professor Quirrell.

The Healer had listened as he cradled his mug in his hands, saying nothing the whole time, his eyes thoughtful as he watched the boy talk and pace back and forth. Richard would wave his hands at times, hug himself at others, but he kept talking, stopping only to sob or to blow his nose. A few times he checked the insides of his arms, to make sure that no green skull had appeared.

And then there was silence. Richard sat, slumped on a chair, his head in his hands.

"So what was it, then?" Richard asked quietly, letting the tears fall to the floor.

The Healer leaned forward, and replied softly, "It was a Possession. Someone or something was trying to Possess you. There was unicorn magic and the magic of two different wizards in you. It's gone now. It's all been removed."

Richard sniffed, took another wipe at his nose and rubbed his eyes. "No, it isn't all gone. Some of the memories are still there."

"Their magic is gone, though. Unfortunately, there wasn't time for fine art, so it's going to probably be a few weeks before yours is back to the way it was before."

"It can't be the way it was before," the boy said dully, avoiding the Healer's eyes. He got up and looked out the window.

Down on the verge, Hagrid was playing with a huge three-headed dog.

Healer Mathews came and watched with him for a while, and then the Healer remarked, "Odd, thinking that that thing was in the school."

Richard wondered for a moment, and then saw the dog relieve itself. "It was on the third floor, wasn't it?" he asked. _I am such an idiot. It was there the whole time, and I smelled it. Got it in my lungs. _Richard vomited suddenly.

--------------

The Healer and the boy were still in the office. Richard wasn't ready to go back out into the wing. Other Healers from St. Mungo's had come to take the unconscious Professor Quirrell to the hospital, leaving Harry Potter in the other bed. Matt, a house-elf and Madam Pomfrey were working in the wing.

Students were showing up with their usual assortments of "ails and wails", as the Mungos referred to their simple problems. Cormac McLaggan had somehow Charmed his foot on backwards, but that was to be expected; he was there almost every day. Some of Harry's friends came to check on him, and the Weasley twins brought a toilet seat as a get-well present for him.

-------------

"Why am I still alive?" Richard wondered as he sat on his bed, and looked where Quirrell's bed had been. "Why didn't he just throw the Killing Curse, and then take my body?"

"A body has to be alive to be Possessed," the Healer replied. "However, if Professor Quirrell's mission had been a success...well, what might have happened is something we will never know. Fortunately, the Headmaster and Mr. Potter saw to its failure."

The boy shook his head, "I don't understand. Why didn't he win? How did I live?" he asked, as he avoided glancing over to the bed where Harry Potter lay unconscious. "Did he Possess him too?"

The Healer collected his thoughts before he answered. "Apparently the Potter boy was attacked and was severly injured, but the Headmaster examined him and said that there was no sign of Possession. And as for you, well, there was the Murtlap you'd eaten - that's one of the reasons why you're awake now, and he isn't. And then there was the unicorn's magic. Professor Quirrell's body had unicorn blood in it, but you weren't the one who killed the beast and you weren't the one who drank its blood; you were innocent and its magic helped to preserve you. And, well, you wanted to live. You are in your own body, after all. And possession is nine tenths of the law. You were there first, and, unlike Professor Quirrell, you didn't set out a welcome mat." He said nothing more, but sipped again at his drink as he gazed at the boy, and the looked over to where the other boy lay, still unconscious.

"Is he dead? Is he, not Professor Quirrell, but him," he said, not daring to say his name, or to even allude to it.

"The Headmaster said that he's sure that he's alive somewhere, but that it will probably be a long time before he returns, if ever," the Healer quietly replied.

"Then am I in danger?" the boy asked.

There was a long pause. The Healer looked down into his mug, and swirled it around before he answered. "Not now. And perhaps, not for the rest of your life. " He looked Richard in the eyes. "I don't know, but not now."

-------

Richard was back inside Madam Pomphrey's office, as she and Healer Matthews discussed their patients. He gazed at a his reflection in the small mirror that hung by the office door._ I should have done something to stop it. If I had, then none of this would have happened._

He heard the voices of students outside: "Here's for Harry…" Madam Pomphrey left the room to intercept the visitors.

His heart stuck in his mouth as he felt the vomit rise in his throat again.

"Don't tell anyone. Don't tell anybody." He hugged his arms around his body and sat down in a chair, curling up in it. "Don't tell. Don't tell Matt. Don't tell Draco. Don't tell my mum." And he wept, the sobs wracking his body. When he was stilled, the Healer conjured a cot by window, and led the boy to it, helping him to lie down, and placed a blanket around his exhausted body, a pillow under his tired head. Madam Pomfrey came back into the office. The two whispered for a short while, and then she left the room.

It was late in the evening. Healer Mathews darkened the room and made himself comfortable in his chair. He kept watch over the sleeping boy, his drained mug cradled in his hands, while in the wing, the Headmaster kept his watch over Harry Potter.

-------------------------

_"Only one power remained to me. I could possess the bodies of others." Voldemort _


	19. Chapter 19 The Journey Back

_Originally beta-ed by Somigliana. Again, I added stuff afterwards, and posted._  
_To find out why the teachers were laughing (as seen in the last chapter), please read my story,"The Joys of Apparition"._

**The Journey Back**

The story among the students was that Harry Potter and Professor Quirrell had defeated a terrible monster that had lived somewhere in the castle. Both had been terribly injured, and now were in the hospital wing.

There had also been a three-headed dog in the third corridor, to keep the monster at bay, and now that the monster was gone, the dog was free to roam on the lawn near the gamekeeper's hut. Students had gone out to watch it play on the grass. Many had heard that it would be sent to Greece, that it was just on loan to the school, although there were some who insisted that the beast would be released into the Forbidden Forest; a few believed that gamekeeper would keep it as a pet. Those who were in the Care of Magical Creatures classes made sure to check it out – something about it might be on a future exam, and for the seventh seventh year N.E.W.T. students, it was something to mention on a job application.

Everyone knew someone whose second cousin had to put up with a magical monster of some sort. Cormac McLaggen, of course, knew a whole family that had been plagued by flesh-eating garden gnomes, and had to call in a specialist to deal with them. But this one had been below the castle, maybe near the Hufflepuff common room.

Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley had been there, but he'd broken his leg - or maybe his arm, or both - and she had helped him out before they could see the monster, and so missed being there when Harry Potter and the Professor use their combined powers to battle the monster to its death. The Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher had been sent to St. Mungo's, but Harry was still in the hospital wing. The only question on students' minds was if Professor Quirrell would be back at school next year, or going on a speaker's tour.

So the stories went. How they got started, no one knew, but Richard was terrified his name would come up somehow. A few of the Ravenclaws had asked about him, Jerome reported, but they all seemed to assume that he was helping out the victims in the hospital wing. No one mentioned He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, though Healer Mathew and Headmaster Dumbledore had discussed him with Richard, behind the closed doors of the hospital wing.

------

The Quidditch match was going on: Ravenclaw vs. Gryffindor. There were a few students in the school, but most were at the pitch, watching the game. Richard and Matt were excused from their Mungo duties - the first because his recovery was not complete, and the second as he was his teammate. Richard felt trapped in the hospital wing, and Madam Pomphrey allowed him to leave for a while.

He and Matt were sitting in the otherwise empty Great Hall, picking at a late breakfast. Richard accidentally dropped his napkin. He tried to use his wand to summon it, but it didn't respond. He panicked for a moment, and forced himself to calm down. He focused and succeeded in retrieving it. Matt pretended to ignore the whole event.

"...Doing for Draco's birthday?" Matt asked as he reached for a hard boiled egg.

Richard realized that Matt had been talking, and he hadn't been listening. He had to think for a minute about what the topic was. "I don't know - I haven't talked with him about it," he replied, wondering when Draco's birthday was, and if he'd missed it, and why Matt wanted to know. He wished he'd stayed in bed; he was starting to feel tired.

Suddenly, Professor Snape seemed to swoop at them from out of nowhere. Richard was startled, and knocked over his pumpkin juice; he struggled to keep from crying from embarrassment. The professor ignored the mess.

"Follow me," he ordered, and headed towards the faculty door that was up by the High Table.

Matt and Richard looked at each other with surprise. _Why?_

They got up, Matt supporting Richard as he stumbled against the bench, and they followed the teacher.

They had never been through the door before, or down the narrow spiral stairs that had one or two exits to the sides. They could feel the wards soften as they walked into them, and they were slowed just a little. Richard was exhausted by the time that they reached the bottom, and went through the door that the teacher held open.

The sun was shining brightly. The only sounds were from the Forbidden Forest, and from the slight crunching sounds that came from walking on a gravel path. The path led into the forest. The boys continued to follow the man.

If Richard had been by himself, he would not have gone, as much as he trusted the Professor. He trusted Matt, but found himself getting nervous the further that they were from the castle.

The lake was in view. _Are we going to see the merpeople? Is the professor going to have us collect lacewings or something else? Is he going to drown us? _Richard wondered.

The sound of the water lapping against the shore was getting stronger, but Richard felt weaker, and was starting to wonder if he had the energy to continue.

The professor stopped suddenly. The two caught up to him and stopped. Matt was about to ask something, when the boys saw a man wearing a black travel cloak, standing at the edge of the trees, looking out over the water. The man turned to them, and they saw that he was Mr. Malfoy. He started walking towards them, and he had a look of concern on his face.

"Richard?" he asked quietly.

Richard stood still and stared at him. Matt started to say something, but the Professor put a hand on his arm. Mr. Malfoy stopped and had his arm out in invitation. Richard stumbled to his side and down the path.

Two by two, the foursome slowly made their way along the path that ran by the side of the lake, with Richard and Mr. Malfoy walking a bit ahead. The boy stumbled, and the man caught him. There was the soft sound of their voices - Mr. Malfoy's low quiet, questioning voice, and Richard's alto answering. Professor Snape said nothing and didn't look at Matt. The only other sounds were the lapping sounds of the lake, the swishing of the robes, the singing of birds, and the rustling of leaves.

Richard's body was sagging with every step. Suddenly a sob broke from the boy; his shoulders were shaking. Matt started towards him, but the teacher put his arm out and stopped him.

Mr. Malfoy stopped walking and wrapped his arms around the boy's shoulders, resting his cheek on the top of the boy's head, gently rocking him, as Richard clung to his cloak. Amidst the quiet sounds of the forest and the boy's anguished weeping, Lucius's comforting voice gently floated.

"There, there, Richard, shush…shush."

-----

"It's not fair at all, the points being switched around like that. I'll bet that it was all made up, just a trick," Draco groused.

Richard was regretting not taking the Floo back to St. Mungo's. He had hoped that riding home on the Hogwarts Express would give him more time to collect his thoughts, but Draco had other plans for him. The space was crowed, with the six of them together: Draco and his friends on one side, Jerome, Matt and Richard on the other.

Gus Pye came to the door. "Hey, Victor, Greg, the trolley's on its way. Give you a Sickle if you give me your seats." The two didn't need another word. Gus gave them the coin as they went out the door, followed by a scowling Draco.

"You're suppose to call them by their last names," Draco admonished him as he pushed past the future Healer.

Gus ignored him as he shut the door behind him, warding it fast.

"Well, Matt, Jerome, I'll take over now. You keep those three busy, if you don't mind."

"But it's your last ride on the Express," Jerome protested.

"You can come back, and take my place if you want to, but right now, I think Richard needs to get some sleep." He looked kindly at the boy.

Richard's eyelids were fluttering and he was feeling drowsy. The other two got up, and Gus released the wards for them to leave.

He helped Richard get comfortable on the seat, and stayed with him.

But for once, Richard didn't fall to sleep at once.

He stared at nothing as he thought about his mum. He had wished as a child that she looked more like Mrs. Malfoy. She was shorter than Draco's mother, and heavier. Her hair was short, and tangled in curls that never seemed to stay combed, as she was always running her hand through them. She didn't have the clothes, and she didn't have the graces, but she was his mum, and he knew that she loved him.

But had she wanted him?

Where was his father? Was he under a curse of forgetfulness or was he out gloating somewhere that he had had his way, and left her? It had been comforting, being told that the one memory she had was of drinking a potion to ensure her pregnancy, but now it was disquieting. Had she been under the Imperius Curse?

Why had Dark Mark been there at his birth? Was that a sign of ownership?

He remembered the girl from the street faire the previous summer, who told him, _"Someone wants your body, but not your soul. That's bad." _. He wondered what else she knew. _"You are the spawn of two dragons...You sure sleep a lot. "_

_She was just plain weird..._ His thoughts faded as the train rocked him to sleep.

He was awake when the train pulled into the station. He could see the Malfoys waiting for Draco, and the parents of other students. He looked for the St. Mungo's collection and saw them, standing together in the crowd. Richard dragged his trunk out of the train and down the stairs, glad that he had some strength back. He joined the other Mungos on the trek to their parents, and gave his mum a hug. She had tears in her eyes as she looked at her son, who was almost as tall as she was.

She gently brushed his hair out of his eyes. "You look like a little Welsh pony," she teased affectionately.

"Let's go home, Mum," the young man said quietly, and, for the first time in years, took her hand in his as they walked to the platform's Floo


	20. Chapter 20 Aftermath

_beta-ed by Somigliana_

**Aftermath**

The next morning, after his mum went to work, Richard went to the barbershop in Diagon Alley. It was a busy place – one wizard was getting his beard braided while an attendant was buffing his nails and another applied a Healing Balm to his feet. Another wizard was having his ear hair trimmed, while another was having a colourful map painted on his bald head. All the chairs were full, and Richard had to wait his turn.

"You're from Hogwarts, eh?" asked the older customer who was sitting next to him. "What happened to your hair? Did you think having long hair would allow you into the girls' dorms?" He snickered. Richard was relieved when he was finally called up.

"What will you have today? I can do all of the current styles," the barber announced as he prepared Richard for his haircut.

Richard looked at himself in the mirror. How did it get so long? His mum was right – he did look like a Welsh pony. And Draco was right – he looked stupid. "Just cut it. Cut it off," Richard said, "cut it all off."

The barber went to work with his copper shears. As the locks fell off, Richard tried to imagine the soils and stains of the year falling with them. It was as if he could smell his vomit, the dog's odour, the troll's stench, Professor Quirrell's scent, and the nutmeg flavoured Murtlap. Even after the hair was off, and he looked at his own almost-bald head, the memories were still present.

After leaving the chair, he looked back at the mess on the floor. Anger surged in him, and he immediately whipped out his wand and snarled, _"Incendio!"_. The hair went up in flames, and the stench of burning hair filled the shop. As the smoke cleared, Richard saw that everyone there was looking at him in astonishment, and then the place got very noisy as the staff and the customers started shouting.

The shopkeeper came and shoved him outside. "That was completely uncalled for. Don't ever come back."

-------

Richard slipped away after dinner, and wandered down the corridors of St. Mungo's. He knew where he was going, and he was dreading it.

On the bottom floor of the Hospice building, he stopped outside a room that had a large round window in the door. The door was painted with flowers and Celtic designs, and Richard was not a little surprised that he could now look into the window without standing on tiptoe.

He bowed his head, and took a deep breath, and pushed his way in.

The Garden room was lit in summer twilight, the air made fresh and fragrant with live plants. Across the room, the large pastoral painting of the Sea of Galilee shone with its own light; of stars reflecting off of the water's surface. It was night time in the painting. The quiet sound of the sea waves against the shore did not cover the soft sound of a slowly beating heart. In the centre of the room was tall bed, and Professor Quirrell lay on it. Richard had slipped into the room before he noticed the Attendant. He was sitting by the door, reading a book by a shielded ball of soft light. At first, Richard was surprised, thinking it was Professor Snape, but relaxed and was relieved when the black-haired man lifted his face, and he could see the kind eyes and sad smile of Jacob Marley, one of St. Mungo's morticians. Marley said nothing, but looked at Richard and then Quirrell and went back to his reading.

Richard wandered around the room, glancing at the large picture and at the other paintings of peaceful scenery, delaying his purpose a few more minutes. A painting of a nightingale awoke and started singing. He watched it for a while.

Finally, he summoned up his courage and turned to look at his former teacher.

Professor Quirrell's head seemed smaller without the turban. His chin was sunken, and his body looked completely relaxed. He seemed to only be asleep and not dying, but Richard knew that his death would be only a matter of time - the man would never wake up in the mortal world again. He studied the man's hands, then, carefully put out a finger and traced a vein down across the back of the limp hand. The skin felt dry and lukewarm. The man had no odour. Richard studied his face. The eyes did not move in dream. Richard wondered who he had been before he came to Hogwarts, before he met the evil in the forest. A few days ago, Richard had learned that the man was also a Merlin, raised by a Muggle aunt in Brittany, until the letter had arrived from Beauxbatons. The Muggle aunt was long dead, and Quirrell had no other family to claim the body. He would be buried in a potter's field in England; a place for the poor and unclaimed. Richard felt guilty that he had not personally known him, what he thought of things, why he made the choices he did, and now it was too late to ask.

Richard looked around the room again. Jacob continued to read, the fountain continued to splash, the stars and their reflections were shining in the painting, and the heart continued to beat.

Richard quietly slipped out of the room.

He returned to his mum's flat. She was still gone, working the swing shift. He slipped out of his clothes, into his night clothes, lay on the sofa, and then wept until he fell asleep, the tracks of tears still wet on the boy's face.

---------

He dreamed.

It was predawn, and he was in Oxfordshire, at Uffington. Richard had been there before, on field trips and outings. He was in the small, deep valley called The Manger, and he could see the silhouette of Dragon Hill with its flat top. He could see that there was a light mist over the grass. Up in the grey sky he could see two dragons, wheeling about in flight, and could faintly hear their far keening. A large white horse galloped by him, and Richard followed it effortlessly as it went up a slope on White Horse Hill, away from Dragon Hill. The horse grew larger as it neared the top, and with a giant leap it stretched itself out, breaking into pieces that fell down into the hillside, down into the grass, and flatten out. He saw then that it was the White Horse of Uffington. He stared at it for a time, and then looked up. Above it on the crest of the horse's hillside were two standing stones; they had not been there on his waking visits. Richard went up to them, walking around on the slope until he faced the stones, looking towards the east.

A man – wearing the long white robes that St. Mungo's dressed its dead in - was standing by the stones. He had sandy brown hair that moved in the slight morning breeze, and he looked out up to the sky and over the land above Richard's head, and then he looked down at Richard.

Richard gazed back at him. The only sound was the breeze moving the grass, whistling by the stones. The man was Professor Quirrell, and he gave the boy a small, sad smile. Richard continued to gaze back. The man rubbed his hands together, studied them, and then gave Richard another small smile. Richard simply stood and looked back at him. After a few more moments, the man then straightened his back, turned and went between the two stones. The sun jumped up at that moment, blinding the boy with its brightness.

In a moment or so, the boy was able to look again. Professor Quirrell was gone. There were no other living things that he could see, but the grass and the two dragons, flying unreachable above him, high above the green landscape.

-------

His mother woke him up in the darkened apartment. "Richard? Richard, are you all right? You're crying, honey." She cradled his head in her arms, and held him as he continued to weep, wiping his eyes and his nose as if he were a child again, and when he was finished, she helped him to lie back down and got him a drink of soda water.

Exhausted, he fell asleep again, but this time it was dreamless. When he went to breakfast in the communal dining room, feeling rested though drained, he heard that Professor Quirrell was dead.

-------

Richard went to the street faire every day, searching for the girl he had met before - one with a French accent, junky jewellry and big glasses. What had she seen in her crystal ball? What would she say now that he was ready to listen to her?

He tried to remember her name – he only heard it once. Debbie? Denise? Daphne? Finally, on his last day in London, before he was to return to the Murtlap harvest, he found a booth selling "The Waters of Delphi". Delphi. He was sure that was her name.

"I'd like to buy a bottle," he told the man at the cash box as he held out his coins.

"None of that funny foreign stuff," the man said as he ignored the Sickle and picked out the Muggle money instead.


	21. Chapter 21 The Decisions of Mr Malfoy

_My daughters have begged me to not write any more fan-fiction. *sigh* They point out that there's no money in it, no future in it, and the dishes don't get done._

_Anyway, this is the last chapter of this book. I hope you've enjoyed my story! Thanks be to God for the wonderful gifts of imagination and creation. Thanks again to J. K. Rowling for the Harry Potter universe, and allowing us free play with her characters, and for the creators and staff of fan-fiction sites for the opportunities to post our stories, and to you who read and review._

**The Decisions of Lucius Malfoy**

It took less than a second for Lucius to discover for himself that the account of the Dark Lord's return was ungrounded.

A few days later, he was sitting in his place on the board of Governors of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, listening to the reports that Headmaster Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey gave on the death of Professor Quirrell and the related hospitalization of four students.

If anyone had been aware of the Dark Lord's return, it would have been Lucius, but his arm was as clear from any markings as it had been the day after the Potters' deaths. There had been no word, no whisper, nothing different after more than a decade. It was Dumbledore's word against Lucius's own experience.

Then what was that, that _thing_ on the back of Quirrell's head? Some sort of parasite that the incompetent wizard had picked up on his travels, something a Muggle-born wizard would never recognize for what it was; a creature of Dark Magic. The man had probably been too embarrassed to get help for it, and now the man was dead. The boy Harry Potter was once again proclaimed a hero, Richard and other students had been harmed, and (according to the headmaster's report) the time-honoured artefact of the Stone was now destroyed. If Flamel and his wife hadn't wanted it any more, Lucius would have been happy to relieve them of it. Pity.

Pity, too, that the parasite had been destroyed. It might have been a new discovery, perhaps had some use as a potion ingredient. He would have to talk to Severus about it sometime; maybe he salvaged it and had it in a jar. Perhaps there were more where it came from.

Lucius shifted quietly in his seat to listen to the governor next to him ask the headmaster a totally pointless question.

Quirrell had been an incompetent teacher. Lucius had been annoyed when he'd seen the textbook that he had been using and when he reviewed Draco's papers. If it _had_ been the Dark Lord living on top of his brain, Quirrell would have been a far better teacher. The educator in Lucius was furious: a whole school year wasted by this Muggle-born idiot.

Dumbledore droned on in his sorry excuse of an answer.

Lucius hoped that the next teacher would be able to make up for the lost educational opportunities. In the meantime, he would have Draco tutored during the summer. He knew that Severus would do all he could to make sure that each Slytherin would at least achieve "Acceptable", but it wouldn't do to have Draco have less than an "Outstanding" when the O.W.L.s arrived in four years time.

A question was asked of Madam Pomfrey.

Lucius listened to her answers impatiently as he prepared his own questions.

It was his turn.

"Madam Pomfrey, did Mr. Weasley or Miss Granger see Professor Quirrell that night? Either before or after they were in the hospital wing?" he asked in a bored drawl.

"No sir."

"And where was Professor Quirrell when they were in the hospital wing?"

"Miss Granger and Mr. Weasley came into the hospital wing before Professor Quirrell and Harry Potter were brought in by Headmaster Dumbledore and Professors McGonagall and Snape."

"How and when was Mr. Goodfellow discovered?"

"Mr. Goodfellow's friends had been waiting for him to return from detention, and they sent the Grey Lady to find him. The ghost went to the classroom where he usually had detention, but could not access the classroom."

"Usually? How many detentions did he have that year with Professor Quirrell?" Lucius interrupted coolly as he gave the headmaster a cold stare.

"Governor Malfoy, please allow Madam Pomfrey to complete her statement," the head governor ordered.

Lucius stood, bowed an apology and grimly sat back down.

The school's nurse looked nervous. "Professor Dumbledore had returned by that time. A house-elf reported being summoned to the classroom, but that he was unable to respond. Some of the Ravenclaws, known as Mungos, went to the room. They were attempting to force the door open when it fell open suddenly, and they found Rich-, Mr. Goodfellow, on the floor, apparently having a seizure. The internal Floo Network was not working. One of the advanced students conjured a stretcher to carry Mr. Goodfellow to the Hospital Wing, where he was treated as I have already described."

"When was he discovered relative to the other four being brought into the hospital wing?"

Madam Pomfrey faltered. "I…I believe it was half an hour later. Miss Granger was asleep by then, Mr. Weasley and Mr. Potter were stabilized and unconscious, and Professor Quirrell was already under a Stasis Charm.

"When Mr. Goodfellow was found in the room, was there anyone else in the room, any, ah, ghost or other presence?"

Madam Pomfrey looked puzzled. "None that was reported to me."

"Thank you for your report, Madam Pomfrey," he said, without conviction.

-----

After Madam Pomfrey and Headmaster Dumbledore had left the meeting, the board members relaxed while they continued with the meeting.

Lucius mulled over the history of the Defence of Dark Arts teachers. Something had to change for the better. There had to be someway, some socially acceptable way to remove Dumbledore from the school. The story Draco and his friends told him had more sense than what the headmaster told the governors. After all, it was probably the old coot who had stirred up a relatively harmless resident monster, and who had arranged for the incompetent idiot and the celebrity student to take it on, instead of doing the job himself or leaving the thing alone.

If there was another monster in the school, and if someone else (other than Dumbledore's favorite student) got rid of it, perhaps then the board would demand the old wizard's resignation. A new Headmaster could only improve the quality of the school's education. Lucius thought that Professor Severus Snape would make an excellent headmaster, one who would take his recommendations seriously.

And Lucius knew where to find another monster.

"May I put forth a proposal, that the next Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher be someone with experience in dealing with the Dark Arts, as opposed to the relatively inexperienced teachers that the school has had in the past? Someone who has published research, who has had years of extensive in-the-field training?" Lucius asked. _Someone who could control or kill a monster on his own, _he added to himself.

"Hear! Hear!" another governor called out. "I've been thinking the same thing - too much book learning and nothing to show for it, just terrible scores on the O.W.L.s and the N.E.W.T.s. And I know just the chap. He's had years of dealing with Dark Creatures, and he's written a book for every case. He's got another book due out this summer. Gilderoy Lockhart would be an excellent teacher, a feather in the cap for Hogwarts! I'll put out the recommendation to Dumbledore myself."

-----

After the meeting, Lucius sat in his study in his home. Outside the windows the summer rain drizzled. Inside, the house was quiet, as Narcissa and Draco were still at Diagon Alley, with the whiny house-elf, Dobby, to attend them. It would be hours before they returned.

As Lucius rested in his favourite easy chair, he mulled over the question of Lord Voldemort's return. The Dark Lord had instructed him to keep Richard safe. The boy had been with Professor Quirrell countless times, alone, and whatever it was on the back of the man's head made no attempt to contact the boy. He was sure that the Dark Lord would not have harmed Richard as this parasite had. The boy was mending physically, but his mental, emotional and magical states were still in serious condition. The Dark Lord would have wanted him whole, and he would have wanted him well - Lucius was certain of that much. It was another strike against the He Who Must Not Be Named Is Back Again theory.

He doubted very much that the Dark Lord would return. There was no reason to continue to wait for him. He would let his sister-in-law, Bellatrix Lestrange, have the job; it would give her something to do while she cooled her heels in prison.

Lucius returned to the question of Richard. The boy was listed on public record as a Merlin. Like the original Merlin, Richard was listed as a boy with no known father and a mother who could not - or would not - recall her impregnation. (Lucius suspected both women remembered more than either would admit.) The wizarding world was very careful about its genealogies and bloodlines and about the responsibilities a father had to his child or children; a son who had been abandoned by his father had an ancient (although now illegal) right to commit patricide. Furthermore, and unfortunately for Richard, fatherless boys were more likely to be possessed than other children.

He would not have Richard harmed again. He knew the boy was safe at St. Mungo's and at his summer job at the Murtlap farm, but he had not been and would not be at school, not while Dumbledore ruled the castle.

He knew what he had to do. He would use a book that the Dark Lord had given him years ago, a key that would unleash an unknown monster inside the school., one that would kill Mudbloods, just Mudbloods; Richard and Draco would both be safe. He decided to give it to someone whom no one would suspect, someone who wasn't a Slytherin; a student, maybe a girl, someone who wasn't rich, who would be likely to use an old, blank journal and be above suspicion. And if this particular student was a Mudblood, and harmed or killed by the monster, well, it would be a small loss in the wizarding world, but enough to get that Muggle-loving Headmaster removed from his office and end his influence in society.

Lucius allowed himself a few moments to gloat. A glance out the window showed that the wind had shifted as the rain pelted harder on the windows, and the clouds darkened. He gave a deep, relaxing sigh, before returning to his favourite train of thought.

Richard was still twelve years old, soon to be thirteen. In four more years he would be of age, and then there would be just ten months of schooling left to finish.

They would go look for the boy's father. Whether or not they actually found him was not in Lucius's plans, but in less than five years, the two of them would leave England and go to Europe, Asia, the Americas, Africa, and Australia - perhaps even take a Muggle ship to Antarctica - just the two of them, together. Or, it could become the ultimate field trip. He could include some of Richard's friends, one or two acquaintances from the Ministry of Magic, perhaps even Severus Snape. For the professor, the trip would be very educational. Because of Lucius' being a governor of Hogwarts, doors would open for them at schools and academies around the world. Surely even the esteemed Baum Institute of Magical Research and Development would allow them a tour! His influence at the Ministry and on the school board would increase.

And when - if! - the Dark Lord returned, then Lucius would have more resources to offer him.

Lucius was still smiling as he accepted a cup of tea from the house-elf, Janus. It was still raining outside as he surveyed the grounds from the window.

There was so much to do in the few years before the boy was out of school.

He could wait. He would wait.

_------------------------------------_

_._

_"Yet you never tried to find me, Lucius." - Voldemort in __Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire_


End file.
